Aphasia By Jocelyn Mata O

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Aphasia (or aphemia) is a loss of the ability to produce and comprehend language, due to injury to brain areas specialized for these functions. Aphasia is an acquired communication disorder that impairs a person's ability to process language, but does not affect intelligence. Primary signs of the disorder include difficulty in expressing oneself when speaking, trouble understanding speech, and difficulty with reading and writing. Aphasia is not a disease, but a symptom of brain damage. Most commonly seen in adults who have suffered a stroke, aphasia can also result from a brain tumor, infection, head injury, or dementia that damages the brain. It is estimated that about 1 million people in the United States today suffer from aphasia. The type and severity of language dysfunction depends on the precise location and extent of the damaged brain tissue.
Generally, aphasia can be divided into four broad categories Broca's aphasia are able to understand the speech of others to varying degrees. Affected people often omit small words such as "is," "and," and "the." Wernicke’s usually have great difficulty understanding speech and are therefore often unaware of their mistakes. Wernicke's aphasia may speak in long sentences that have no meaning, add unnecessary words, and even create new "words. Global aphasia, results from damage to extensive portions of the language areas of the brain. Individuals with global aphasia have severe communication difficulties and may be extremely limited in their ability to speak or comprehend language Patients with anomic or Amnesia aphasia, the least severe form of aphasia, have difficulty in using the correct names for particular objects, people, places, or events
Causes Aphasia the most common cause of aphasia is stroke (about 25-40% of stroke survivors acquire aphasia). A stroke occurs when, for some reason, blood is unable to reach a part of the brain. Brain cells die when they do not receive their normal supply of blood, which carries oxygen and important nutrients. A person can have aphasia without having a physical disability when a person acquires aphasia it is usually due to damage on the left side of the brain, which controls movements on the right side of the body.
Sometimes the people who have aphasia return to their jobs since most jobs require speech and language skills, aphasia can make some types of work difficult. Individuals with mild or even moderate aphasia are sometimes able to work, but they may have to change jobs. When the symptoms of aphasia last longer than two or three months after a stroke, a complete recovery is unlikely. However, it is important to note that some people continue to improve over a period of years and even decades. Improvement is a slow process that usually involves both helping the individual and family understand the nature of aphasia and learning compensatory strategies for communicating.
In addiction the prognosis and the diagnosis are varies widely and dependent upon age of patient site, size of lesion and type of aphasia.
There are several way to know how the symptoms like; inability to comprehend language, to pronounce, to speak, to form words, to name objects, to repeat a phrase, poor enunciation and others.
Beside people believe that the most effective treatment begins early in the recovery process, but also some language abilities return over a period of a few days to a month after the brain injury. In these instances, speech-language therapy is often helpful. Additional factors include motivation, handedness, and educational level. Family involvement is often a crucial component of aphasia treatment so that family members can learn the best way to communicate with their loved one.
Research about aplasia the use of computers in treatment is being studied. Promising new drugs administered shortly after some types of stroke are being investigated as ways to reduce the severity of aphasia.This kind of disability people never heard before include me. In conclusion when us meet a person with Aphasia tried to understad and comprehend and help,because you don't know if you are going to be the next . I hope all this information will be useful for you ,because it was it for me .