If this were repeated in a patient with ideomotor apraxia, the patient may move the comb in big circles around his head, hold it upside-down, or perhaps try and brush his teeth with it.
12.
Ideomotor apraxia patients may still retain the ability to perform spontaneous motions; if someone they know leaves the room, for instance, they may be able to wave goodbye to that person, despite being unable to do so at request.
13.
The other characteristic symptom of ideomotor apraxia is the inability to imitate hand gestures, meaningless or meaningful, on request; a meaningless hand gesture is something like having someone make a ninety-degree angle with his thumb and placing it under his nose, with his hand in the plane of his face.
14.
That is to say that a person is specifically asked to either imitate what someone else is doing or is given verbal instructions, such as " wave goodbye . " People suffering from ideomotor apraxia will know what they are supposed to do, e . g . they will know to wave goodbye and what their arm and hand should do to accomplish it, but will be unable to execute the motion correctly.
