You are examining a patient with left hemiplegia after a stroke and want to assess for somatoparaphrenia. Before revealing the answer, decide what you would specifically ask.

Point to the affected limb and ask directly whose arm it is. If the patient asserts it is not theirs, ask them to explain whose it is and how they think it came to be there, since a specific, elaborated alternative account is a characteristic feature. Separately, check whether they accept that the limb itself is impaired — this distinguishes the finding from anosognosia, where the impairment itself is denied. Because the belief is typically held with striking conviction and is not easily corrected by direct evidence, gently pointing out the limb's obvious anatomical connection to the body rarely resolves it, and the response to this challenge is itself informative to document.