What term describes the inability to execute learned actions despite normal strength, sensation, and coordination, often with aphasia or dementia, and associated with a left frontal or parietal lesion?

• A. Apraxia
• B. Ideational apraxia
• C. Gait apraxia
• D. Alien-hand syndrome

Answer: (A)

Apraxia is the motor planning disorder at work here: a person cannot perform learned, purposeful movements despite having normal strength, sensation, and coordination. The damage is typically in the left hemisphere’s frontal or parietal regions, which disrupt the networks that plan and sequence actions, and this can be accompanied by language problems like aphasia or cognitive changes such as dementia. Distinguishing features help: ideational apraxia is a failure to conceptualize and sequence the steps of an action or misuse objects, rather than an inability to execute a learned gesture on command; gait apraxia concerns difficulty walking despite intact limbs; alien-hand syndrome involves involuntary, purposeful movements of a limb that seem to be out of the patient’s control. In this scenario, the key issue is the inability to perform learned actions despite preserved motor function, pointing to apraxia.