Aphasia is the total or partial loss of language ability, specifically in reading, comprehension and/or writing, with preservation of the intelligence and integrity of the organs of phonation. The term was coined in 1864 by the French doctor Armand Trousseau.
Aphasia is a pathological state that degrades the faculty of language or speech as a result of lesions produced in cortical areas of language or in areas of cerebral association located in the left hemisphere of individuals. Based on the above, there are people who have difficulties in reading, writing, how they may have trouble speaking but keep their understanding intact.
Aphasia is caused by brain damage, on the basis of a progressive-brain skull trauma cell degeneration of the brain located in the area of language, stroke or stroke, the latter causes the most common of aphasia. The latter is caused by the decrease in blood flow that a part of the brain receives or the rupture of blood vessels and the effusion caused by it, which causes the death of the neuron due to the lack of oxygen and nutrients.
Aphasia can be suffered by all people of different ages, social groups and sexes. This type of disorder can be suffered by infants during pregnancy or at the time of delivery, or acquired as a result of a brain injury between 2 years and 8-9 years. At this point, one can mention progressive primary aphasia is a degenerative neurological pathology, which begins with the production of language or its understanding, or both at the same time. Generally, it is suffered by people between 50-70 years of age.
Etymologically, the word aphasia is of Greek origin aphasia which means “the quality of not being able to speak.”
Types of aphasia
Drill Aphasia
Drill aphasia, known as major or expressive motor aphasia, is a speech disorder of the individual in which a person is unable to form complete and articulated sentences, without affecting the ability to understand. This disorder is caused by a parietal fronto-temporal lesion of the brain.
Wernicke’s Aphasia
Wernicke’s aphasia, also called receptive or sensory aphasia, concerns understanding and memory, that is, individuals articulate without difficulty but the expressions lack a clear meaning, because they exchange and add words without need. The present aphasia is caused by lesion of temporo-parietal areas.
Aphasia driving
Driving aphasia is characterized by fluent language but with the presence of neologisms and paraphasies. Patients use pauses to find the right words, however, there is an inability to repeat or reproduce the ear. This type of aphasia is a consequence of an injury to the nerve pathways that connect Broca and Wernicke’s area.
Global aphasia
Patients with global aphasia constantly repeat linguistic sequences without a communicative purpose, which is known as stereotypes. Frequently, this type of disorder affects all areas of language, such as the meaning of words, sentence construction, comprehension, reading. Global aphasia affects the frontal, temporal and parietal lobe regions.
Amnesic Aphasia
Amnesic aphasia presents difficulty in the evocation of words, and it is for this reason that when speaking they produce long pauses or cuts in their speech with normal fluency. Therefore, patients substitute their words for periphrasis, for example: the blue thing, being the same problem in writing.
Anomic aphasia
Anomic aphasia is the slightest, given that the individual has a fluency in speech, understanding what is said, repeats words, produces sentences and reading is not affected. However, it has limitations when finding the word that it means, so in its expressions it usually uses rodeos or word substitution, on the other hand it presents problems in the denomination and at the time of writing it makes the same mistakes as when speaking.
Aphasia treatment
It consists of attending therapies with a speech therapist who is in charge of prevention, evaluation and treatments for human communication disorders. Specifically, it is responsible for applying exercises to the type of aphasia suffered by the patient and applying the communication skills they have achieved in therapist sessions.
