A right-handed 64-year-old female who complained of difficulty in identifying familiar faces was investigated in a series of face perception tests(face matching, recognition of age and sex, and meaning of facial expressions), face identification(including faces of family members and famous people as retrograde examples and her doctors’ faces as anterograde examples)and other neuropsychological abilities. Her scores on the face perception tests were almost normal. Her general cognitive function measured by MMSE was substantially normal. In contrast, she was unable to identify any of the anterograde or retrograde familiar faces and failed to experience any sense of familiarity with those faces. In addition, she could not recognize the voices of family members or her doctor, despite being able to recognize the age and sex of the voices. Her knowledge about famous people was also degraded. On the other hand, she could describe the personalities of her family members and doctors. Memory for personal events in the recent and remote past was preserved, while that for past social events was severely disturbed. In addition to impairment in identification of familiar faces, she had severe problems with identifying famous buildings. She also presented with Gogi (word meaning) aphasia and impaired semantic memory for some common objects.
  Tyrrell et al. and Kazui et al. have reported similar semantic dementia(SD)cases. McNeil et al. examined such an SD patient on covert recognition of faces in detail. That patient showed no covert recognition effects, and consequently they attributed the result not to a deficit of access to face recognition units but to impairment of the face recognition units themselves. Their hypothesis seems to provide an explanation for the disturbance of anterograde and retrograde face memory of our patient. Namely, damage to the face recognition unit system would explain not only her loss of retrograde face representations, but also her impairment in making new face representations.
  Neuroanatomical studies with CT and MRI scans revealed striking focal atrophy in the anterior part of her bilaterally temporal lobes (which was more conspicuous on the right) and the basal part of the frontal lobes. SPECT images demonstrated hypoperfusion in these areas.
  The present study suggests that the right anterior temporal lobe, especially its latero-basal aspect, may play a crucial role in the storage of face recognition units. Furthermore, the pathological process of lobar atrophy with right temporal predominance might affect the whole face recognition system, resulting in a storage deficit for faces.

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  We report our experience with speech therapy based on the method proposed by the Japan Institute for Speech Therapy(JIST)administered to a junior high school student who had developed severe Broca's saphasia and apraxia of speech after suffering mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes(MELAS). The subject showed continuous and rapid recovery from severe difficulties in articulation and word finding. He regained conversational capacity within about 2 years. These results suggest the necessity of long-term rehabilitation for young cases of this disorder. In view of the process of improvement, advocacy of the JIST method for development of word recall function, reconfiguration of articulation after speech apraxia, and generalization to everyday conversation was considered.

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  The purpose of this study was to develop a “Social Adjustment Disorder Inventory” clarifying whether social behavior disorder is a problem affecting day-to-day emotions/behavior, and to examine its reliability and validity. Four hundred and fifty-one families having individuals with traumatic brain injury were asked to complete a questionnaire. Results of factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis revealed that this inventory contained 36 items comprising 6 factors, including “egocentrism/reduced control of emotion,” “decreased independence,” “difficulty in mutual understanding,” “memory deficit,” “depression,” and “difficulty in recognition of surroundings.” The reliability of this inventory was investigated using Cronbach’s α statistics, and its validity was investigated through content validity and correlation with FIM/FAM. The results of this study indicated that this inventory has high reliability and validity.

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