Aphasia
Aphasia
In this condition patient’s ability to communicate become distorted resulting in the failure to speak, write and understand own language either verbally or written. There are three pattern of aphasia.
- Comprehensive aphasia/broca or non fluent aphasia in which patient speak in small sentences which can be understandable. They speak well as compare to understanding other people speech
- Expressive aphasia/ wernicke’s aphasia/ fluent aphasia in which patient speak in unrecognizable, long and meaningless sentences.
- Global aphasia in which patient can’t speak properly and have poor comprehension.
Symptoms
Aphasia is the symptom of some underlying brain disorder. Patient of Aphasia presents as:
- Speaking in small and distorted sentences
- Sentences don’t make sense feeling like a word salad.
- Substitution of sounds and words.
- Words in the speech will be unrecognizable
- Unable to understand others conversations
- Not able to write sensible sentences
Causes
Major causes are:
- Stroke causing brain damage by blocking the arterial blood resulting in brain cell death.
- Traumatic injury to brain
- Infection
- Age related degenerative process
Language difficulty occurring gradually is termed as primary progressive aphasia. This occur due to chronic gradually degenerating brain cells which can become generalized. Transient ischemic attack, seizures and migraines can lead to temporary aphasia
Complications
Quality of life is highly disturbed complicating communicating that affects
- Jobs
- Relationship
- Day to day routine life.
Diagnosis
This condition is diagnosed by a detailed general physical examination along with special neurological tests. Imaging tests are done to locate the causative agent of aphasia.
Treatment
- Speech and rehabilitation therapy
- Medication like memantine (Namenda) and piracetam have promising results
- Brain treatments include transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation are now a days considering.