Axial apraxia, a distinct phenomenon.

Three Parkinson patients who continued to have difficulties with turning in the horizontal plane despite adequate and therapeutically effective levodopa treatment are presented. The handicap of the disordered axial rotation, to be considered an elementary displacement of the body, could be alleviated by alternative motor strategies or overcome by specific extra stimuli or tactile guidance but not physiotherapeutically restored. On the basis of these clinical observations it is argued that these axial movement abnormalities are apraxic.