Isolated hand weakness in cortical infarctions

Po Lin Chen, Hung Yi Hsu, Pao Yu Wang*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

Isolated hand weakness due to stroke is infrequently observed, and often misdiagnosed as peripheral lesions. This study investigated the clinical and radiologic profiles in such patients. Five men and one woman were studied. All patients underwent cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to confirm the diagnosis. Four patients had uniform weakness and the other two had either differential radial or ulnar weakness, respectively. MRI showed acute infarctions involving the hand knob area of the primary motor cortex (M1) in five patients and the postcentral gyrus sparing the precentral gyrus in one patient. Two patients with uniform digit weakness had additional involvement of the inferior parietal lobule. These findings suggest that isolated or predominant hand weakness in patients with cerebral infarctions is not necessarily caused by lesions in the M1 knob area, and that the control center of hand movement is not limited to the knob area alone.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)861-865
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of the Formosan Medical Association
Volume105
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2006

Keywords

  • Cortical infarctions
  • Hand weakness
  • Primary motor cortex

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