Script generation and the dysexecutive syndrome in patients with brain injury

Objective: The authors investigated whether patients with brain injury suffering from dysexecutive symptoms had difficulties with script generation.

Method: Forty-eight patients with brain injury of various etiology with complaints of executive dysfunctioning and deficient scores on executive tests were included in this study. They were compared with 99 healthy control subjects in a script-generation task. Participants were asked to describe how they would perform eight everyday activities. The script items were manipulated so that they varied in structure (open-ended vs. closed) and in frequency of performing (high vs. low).

Results: Patients and control subjects evoked an equal number of actions, but patientsproduced significantly more irrelevant actions and made significantly more perseverative errors. Their most pronounced problems were found in open-ended and low-frequency scripts.

Conclusion: This investigation shows that not only patients with prefrontal damage are impaired in script generation. The consequences for treatment are discussed.