apraxia, the inability to carry out useful or skilled acts while motor power and mental capacity remain intact. Apraxia is usually caused by damage to specific areas of the cerebrum. Kinetic, or motor, apraxia affects the upper extremities so that the individual cannot carry out fine motor acts, such as turning a key in a lock, even though there is no muscle weakness.
Ideational apraxia is characterized by the inability to formulate a plan of action. A plan is never fully organized, and the part that is organized cannot be remembered long enough to be performed. Portions of an act may be completed in an improper sequence. The individual may strike a match, for example, to light a campfire but then will hold the match until it burns his fingers. This type of apraxia is usually caused by a lesion of the cerebral cortex.
Ideokinetic apraxia is caused by an interruption of impulses in the association tracts of the nervous system, so that there is no coordination between ideation and motor activity. An affected individual will complain, for example, that he cannot use his hand, but then he will slap a mosquito with it. People with ideokinetic apraxia are unable to perform certain acts (e.g., whistling or making a fist) upon command but are able to do so automatically. Ideokinetic apraxia is usually caused by a lesion in the supramarginal gyrus of the cerebral cortex.
Constructional apraxia, typically caused by a lesion in the right cerebral hemisphere, is the inability to construct elements in the correct fashion to form a meaningful whole—e.g., being unable to build a structure with blocks or to copy a design.