Abstract
We here reported a 61 years old, right-handed man who complained of pure Kanji (Japanese ideogram or morphogram) agraphia one month before consultation. Neurological and neuroradiological examination revealed cerebral white matter infarction of the left temporal lobe and angular gyrus. His initial neurological examination revealed only pure Kanji agraphia but no other abnormalities. We evaluated his level of Kanji agraphia using Kanji writing tests, whose levels were in the first to second grades of the elementary school. During the performance of Kanji writing test, he showed most frequently no response to questions. We also followed up these Kanji writing tests up to six months later. At the six months later after onset, he almost fully recovered from Kanji agraphia. The present case is considered to be atypical, because the responsible lesions were different from those of previous patients and no obvious past history of the stroke attacks was noted. The lesions of the present case were on the white matter of the left temporal lobe and angular gyrus, whereas those of previous cases were in the left postero-inferior temporal lesions or fusiform gyrus. Furthermore, Kanji agraphia is known to occur usually in patients who have frequent previous history of the strokes. Thus, these findings strongly suggested new responsible lesions for Kanji agraphia.
