Which term describes failure to attend to one side of the body due to contralateral parietal lobe lesion?

• A. Neglect
• B. Grooming and Hygiene
• C. Facial Expression
• D. Masked Facies

Answer: (A)

When a parietal lobe lesion on one side disrupts spatial attention, a person may fail to notice or respond to stimuli on the opposite side of space. This is called neglect (hemispatial neglect). It reflects an attentional deficit rather than a primary sensory deficit—the senses may be intact, but attention to that side is impaired. The right parietal lobe is most often involved, so neglect typically affects the left side of space or the left side of the body.

For example, a patient with right parietal damage may ignore objects or even my left side while dressing, eating, or navigating a room. In exams, you’d look for failure to attend to the left side in tasks or during observation.

The other terms describe different phenomena: grooming and hygiene refers to self-care performance (not the attentional neglect in space), facial expression concerns how expressive the face is, and masked facies describes diminished facial movement often seen in conditions like Parkinson's disease.