Neuropsychological evaluation of visuo-spatial neglect. Is there a relation between quantitative and qualitative methods?

Visuo-spatial neglect is one of the most frequent neuropsychological disorders after a brain damage. Clinical Neuropsychologists work everyday with persons with this specific attentional syndrome either for assessment and rehabilitation. Scientific literature provides a wide amount of instruments in particular for neuropsychological evaluation and most of them are based upon quantitative methodology, that is they are aimed to provide numerical values in order to assess neglect in terms of impairment. On the other hand, very few instruments lead to an evaluation of neglect in terms of disability. In this work we want to provide a brief description of the most used tests arguing for a relation between quantitative methods, as assessment of impairment, and qualitative methods, as instruments for disability. Finally, we give some suggestions, on the base of our experience, to enforce qualitative methodology in neglect assessment.