The Parietal Lobes
The parietal lobes of the brain are located essentially behind the frontal lobes. Like the other lobes of the brain, there is a parietal lobe in each of the two hemispheres of the brain.
The parietal lobes are significant to many bodily functions due to their control of sensory perceptions. These include, touch, pain, temperature and taste. Significantly, they are also involved in perceiving visual and auditory stimuli and in associating those stimuli with past experiences. Those associations, when intact, give context to past experiences. Therefore, a traumatic brain injury (TBI) involving an individual’s parietal lobes may render him or her unable to understand spoken or written communication.
Parietal lobe injury may result in decreased mathematical skills and the related reduction of the ability to assess the relationship of numbers to each other. Yet another consequence, particularly if the right parietal lobe is affected, can be reduced constructional skill. This involves the ability to recreate an object or image by drawing or building it from a model, picture or visual image. If the left side is affected, language difficulties, such as aphasia, can result.
Importantly, the parietal lobes provide information to the motor cortex of the brain relating to a client’s sense of physical orientation. That information is critical to physical function. The involvement of the motor cortex is in executing goal-directed behavior, such as voluntary leg or arm movement. The motor cortex is located in the rear portion of the frontal lobes just below a furrow in the brain that separates the frontal lobe from the parietal lobe.
Therefore, from both an anatomical and a functional standpoint, the relationship between the parietal lobes and the motor cortex is close. For example, the rear portion of the parietal lobes receives somatosensory inputs from other parts of the body. These include sound, vision, taste, smell and equilibrium. They also receive data, called “proprioceptive data” that assists in determining the relative positions of body parts to one another. By processing these inputs, the parietal lobes are able to plan and to coordinate movement. Due to this connection with the motor cortex, an injury to the parietal lobe can have real, practical and daily implications for the client. These include such basic activities as washing, dressing and posture. They are the types of functions that require the kinds of voluntary movements that may have become diminished due to an injury affecting the parietal lobe.
Some kinds of damage to the posterior parietal lobes can lead to apraxia. In one kind of apraxia, clients can make certain spontaneous gestures but not when the same gestures are specifically requested. In another form of apraxia, a client cannot make the correct movements to use an object, such as a pencil, although he or she can identify the item and explain its function. Still other clients with apraxia are unable to perform a requested gesture if the request is made outside of an appropriate social setting.
NeuLife’s philosophy is that healing, wellness and personal fulfillment are best accomplished in a positive and uplifting therapeutic environment where caring staff encourage, assist and support each client so that he or she may achieve specific goals. NeuLife believes personal fulfillment is equally as important as goals to increase function and independence. NeuLife’s multidisciplinary team seeks to achieve, for all of its clients, maximized, sustained outcomes that exceed the expectations of all persons served. Those referred to NeuLife may stay for any established period of time, whether for short-term, long-term or respite care.
NeuLife, in Mount Dora, Florida, is a fully accessible specialized residential post-acute program providing specialized rehabilitation to individuals diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI), spinal cord injury (SCI), traumatic amputations and other catastrophic injuries.
2725 Robie Avenue
Mount Dora, Florida 32757
Call: 800.626.3836
Email: Info@NeuLifeRehab.com
Visit: NeuLifeRehab.com
