Topographic disorientation is the loss of an individual's ability to orient themselves in their surroundings, sometimes as a result of focal brain damage. This inability results from the inability to use spatial information meaningfully or the failure to use specific cognitive strategies for orientation, such as the ability to form a mental representation of the environment, also known as a perceptual map. Topographic disorientation may occur as part of a syndrome of visuospatial cognitive dysfunction. Topographic disorientation represents the inability to find one's way through an environment as a result of cognitive dysfunction. Numerous studies have investigated topographic disorientation using case studies of a number of patients who have lost the ability to selectively find their way in a wide-ranging motor environment. Several dozen case reports of topographic disorientation have emerged over the past century. Studying these individuals helps to understand the complex, multi-component behavior of navigation. Topographic disorientation can be a lifelong disability, as it may result from a stroke, or it may occur as part of a progressive disease. Disorders that frequently accompany topographic disorientation include hemispatial neglect, total color blindness, prosopagnosia, and Alzheimer's disease. Developmental topographic disorientation refers to the loss of orientation since childhood despite the absence of brain damage, neurological disorder, or general cognitive deficit. Individuals with developmental topographic disorientation do not have the ability to generate a mental representation of the environment and therefore cannot use this information when trying to orient themselves. Developmental topographic disorientation should not be confused with the impaired sense of direction in healthy individuals; individuals with developmental topographic disorientation experience daily loss in very familiar surroundings, such as their home or neighborhood. Egocentric disorientation is characterized by the loss of the ability to represent the location of objects relative to the self. This is usually due to lesions in the posterior parietal lobe. Patients have no difficulty recognizing and naming people or objects. These patients have an inability to accurately reach visual objects or the self. In a case study by Stark and colleagues, a patient known as “JW” described an inability to accurately reach visual targets despite her intact vision. The patient had no difficulty recognizing and naming objects presented to her, but she failed to indicate the locations of specific targets via visual, auditory, or proprioceptive input. Her loss of the egocentric spatial representation system resulted in her failure to locate herself in space. The patient's turning in the wrong direction when greeted by a person not facing her was the most significant indicator of her deficit.