Frontal tests do not detect frontal infarctions after ruptured intracranial aneurysm.

The series of 155 patients operated on for a ruptured intracranial arterial aneurysm was examined using typical frontal tests (the Stroop test, word fluency tasks, and a sorting task), as well as a learning and memory test. Patients with frontal infarction were not significantly inferior to patients with non-frontal infarction or to patients with no infarction. Frontal patients, however, were unable to return to work as often as non-frontal patients and more frequently than those with no infarction. These results indicate that the frontal tests used in this study are not selectively sensitive to mainly medial frontal infarctions that follow the rupture of an anterior cerebral artery aneurysm.