Medical Dictionary

Gerstmann's syndrome

noun Gerst·mann's syndrome \ˈgerst-mənz-\

Medical Definition of GERSTMANN'S SYNDROME

:  cerebral dysfunction characterized especially by finger agnosia, disorientation with respect to right and left, agraphia, and acalculia and caused by a lesion in the dominant cerebral hemisphere involving the angular gyrus and adjoining occipital gyri

Biographical Note for GERSTMANN'S SYNDROME

Gerst·mann \ˈgerst-män; ˈgərst-mən\ , Josef (1887–1969), Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist. Gerstmann was in charge of a hospital for nervous and mental diseases during World War I, and after the war he occupied a similar position in Vienna where he also served as a university lecturer in neurology and psychiatry. He was the author of more than a hundred papers on neuropsychiatry, including a 1924 article that gave the first description of the brain disorder now called Gerstmann's syndrome.

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