反応時間課題を用いた注意障害評価法の開発

A new method for assessing patients' inattention by using reaction time tasks

要旨：注意障害の適切な評価を目的に，反応時間（以下，RT）課題とそのRTの四分位点に基づく新しい評価法を考案した．そして，健常成人13名と脳損傷患者6名を対象にRT課題と従来の検査を実施し，その有用性を検討した．従来の検査では，行動観察にて注意障害が認められた3症例中1症例のみを検出する結果であった．一方，本研究で考案した方法では，注意障害が認められた3症例に加えて1症例の注意障害の可能性も示され，この症例に対して現時点での行動観察を行った結果，注意障害が認められた．この結果より，従来の評価法と比較してRT課題を使った新しい評価法は，注意障害を早期に，客観的に発見できる可能性が示唆された．

　We investigated a new method for assessing patients' inattention by using reaction time (RT) tasks. Thirteen right-handed healthy adults and six right-handed brain damaged patients were recruited for this study. We conducted RT tasks for both the healthy adults and the brain damaged patients, while the patients were also assessed by using the established neuropsychological tests. Only one patient from the three who were assessed as inattentive from clinical observations could be judged as inattentive based on one of the neuropsychological tests. On the other hand, the results of our new method revealed one more possible inattentive patient in addition to the three patients. We conducted an additional clinical observation for the newly assessed patient, which was done under a daily living condition that was different from the previous observation. The patient was subsequently judged as inattentive. From these observations, we concluded that the new method could assess inattentive patients earlier and more objectively than the established neuropsychological tests and clinical observations.