Difference in impact of neurobehavioural dysfunction on Activities of daily living performance between right and left hemispheric stroke

OBJECTIVE: To explore whether persons with right- and left-sided cerebrovascular accidents differ significantly in mean impact of neurobehavioural impairments on ability to perform activities of daily living. DESIGN AND SUBJECTS: Retrospective study of data from 215 persons (103 right-sided, 112 left-sided cerebrovascular accident). The Activities of daily living-focused Occupation-based Neurobehavioral Evaluation was used to evaluate ability on an activities of daily living scale and the impact of neurobehavioural impairment on ability on another scale. METHODS: To control for possible differences in activities of daily living ability between groups, analysis of covariance, with activities of daily living ability as a covariate, was used to test for a significant difference in impact of neurobehavioural impairments on activities of daily living ability between groups. RESULTS: Expected moderate correlation (r = -0.57) was obtained between activities of daily living ability and neurobehavioural impact measures, and there was no difference in mean neurobehavioural impact measures between groups (F [1, 212] = 2.910, p = 0.090). CONCLUSION: This study is the first to explore directly the impact of neurobehavioural impairment on activities of daily living ability. While persons with right-sided and left-sided cerebrovascular accidents may differ in type of neurobehavioural impairments, direct evaluation of the impact of such impairments on activities of daily living ability reveals no difference between groups.