Auditory Agnosia Without Aphasia

Abstract

ALTHOUGH cases of agnosia for sound and music have been reported for more than 80 years, 1-10 such defects were invariably observed to be associated with at least a mild impairment in language recognition, ie, auditory verbal agnosia. According to Nielsen, 11 only one case of an agnosia for sounds without evidence of aphasia either in the history or in the present clinical picture has so far been on record. This patient was a 52-year-old Mexican man who was examined with the aid of an interpreter. 12 An older vascular lesion had caused a left hemiparesis in this patient, and a more recent lesion resulted in a total loss of light perception, disorientation in space, loss of ability to visualize, incapacity to form nonlanguage concepts through sensory impressions, and unawareness of the left side of the body. The patient denied the loss of vision and in doing so would, eg,