- "In aphasia (sometimes called dysphasia), a person may be unable to comprehend or unable to formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. The major causes are stroke and head trauma; prevalence is hard to determine but aphasia due to stroke is estimated to be 0.1–0.4% in the Global North."
A language disorder that results from brain damage, usually caused by a stroke, injury, or other neurological condition.
Anatomy and physiology of the brain: Understanding the structure and function of the brain is crucial for studying aphasia.
Neuroplasticity: The ability of the brain to reorganize itself in response to injury or changes in the environment is critical to understanding recovery from aphasia.
Language processing: The mechanisms involved in processing and producing language, such as syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, are important factors in both normal and disrupted language communication.
Types of aphasia: Understanding the different subtypes of aphasia, such as Broca's, Wernicke's, and Global, can aid in diagnosis and treatment planning.
Assessment of aphasia: Using standardized language tests such as the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination, Western Aphasia Battery, or Comprehensive Aphasia Test can help determine the severity and type of aphasia.
Aphasia therapy: Various approaches to aphasia therapy such as Cognitive-Linguistic Treatment, Melodic Intonation Therapy, and Constraint-Induced Aphasia Therapy help individuals with aphasia regain language skills.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC): Strategies for communication enhancement used by persons with severe or progressive aphasia, or by those individuals who have difficulty speaking or writing.
Brain imaging techniques: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can help in the identification and localization of brain lesions responsible for aphasia.
Causes and risk factors of aphasia: Understanding the etiology of aphasia, such as stroke, trauma, brain tumors or infections, neurological disorders, etc., can help predict the onset of the condition.
Family and caregiver support: Individuals with aphasia often require a support system that includes family members and caregivers who can provide communication assistance, social support, and mental health therapy.
Broca's Aphasia: Patients with Broca's aphasia have difficulty with speech production, characterized by slow, effortful, and broken language. Patients have a limited vocabulary and produce short sentences with grammatical errors.
Wernicke's Aphasia: Patients with Wernicke's aphasia have difficulty with language comprehension and often produce fluent, but meaningless speech. They struggle with word finding and make grammatical errors in their speech.
Global Aphasia: Global aphasia is the most severe form of aphasia and affects both language production and comprehension. Patients with global aphasia may be unable to speak at all and may have a limited understanding of spoken or written language.
Anomic Aphasia: Patients with anomic aphasia have difficulty with word finding and may struggle to name common objects or people. They may otherwise have normal speech production and comprehension.
Transcortical Motor Aphasia: Patients with Transcortical Motor Aphasia have difficulty initiating speech but can understand and repeat spoken language. They may also exhibit echolalia, the repetition of phrases or words spoken by others.
Transcortical Sensory Aphasia: Patients with Transcortical Sensory Aphasia have difficulty with language comprehension but can produce fluent, grammatically correct sentences. They may also exhibit echolalia, repeating phrases or words spoken by others.
Conduction Aphasia: Patients with Conduction Aphasia have difficulty repeating phrases or sentences but otherwise have normal speech production and comprehension.
Mixed Nonfluent Aphasia: Mixed Nonfluent Aphasia is a combination of Broca's and Global Aphasia. Patients struggle with speech production and may have a limited understanding of language.
Pure Word Deafness: Patients with Pure Word Deafness have difficulty with auditory comprehension of spoken language but have normal speech production.
- "To be diagnosed with aphasia, a person's language must be significantly impaired in one (or more) of the four aspects of communication." - "The four aspects of communication are spoken language production and comprehension, and written language production and comprehension."
- "The difficulties of people with aphasia can range from occasional trouble finding words, to losing the ability to speak, read, or write; intelligence, however, is unaffected."
- "Expressive language and receptive language can both be affected as well." - "Aphasia also affects visual language such as sign language."
- "In contrast, the use of formulaic expressions in everyday communication is often preserved."
- "One prevalent deficit in the aphasias is anomia, which is a difficulty in finding the correct word."
- "Aphasia is not caused by damage to the brain that results in motor or sensory deficits, which produces abnormal speech; that is, aphasia is not related to the mechanics of speech but rather the individual's language cognition."
- "An individual's language is the socially shared set of rules, as well as the thought processes that go behind communication."
- "It is not a result of a more peripheral motor or sensory difficulty, such as paralysis affecting the speech muscles or a general hearing impairment."
- "Neurodevelopmental forms of auditory processing disorder are differentiable from aphasia in that aphasia is by definition caused by acquired brain injury, but acquired epileptic aphasia has been viewed as a form of APD."