Brain Injury Overview

Aphasia

Aphasia is a sudden condition that causes a person to lose all communication skills following a stroke or traumatic head or brain injury. However, it can also happen gradually as a result of a slowly maturing brain tumor. People afflicted with aphasia may experience difficulty understanding oral and written word, as well as trouble using it to express themselves. The degree of impairment depends upon the area of the brain that has been injured and the severity of the damage. The National Aphasia Association claims that a ratio of 1:250 people is affected by the condition, and most of them are elderly.

Victims of aphasia undergo speech therapy that stresses remastering language and utilizing substitute or supplementary means of communication to help get the point across. It is not uncommon for close friends and relatives to involve themselves in treatment and serve as communication facilitators for the patient.

Causes

Brain damage resulting from a stroke, or a blocked or ruptured blood vessel in the brain, is the leading cause of aphasia. This obstruction of bloods contributes to brain cell death or harm of the regions of the brain responsible for language usage and comprehension. Aphasia may also stem from a brutal head injury, brain tumor, or infection.

An uncommon form of dementia known as primary progressive aphasia forces the cells in the brain's language network to deteriorate. Despite the fact that this is a type of dementia, symptoms related to aphasia normally appear first and remain the most prominent. These symptoms gradually worsen as the disease progresses.

Symptoms

Someone with aphasia may:

• Speak short sentences or in fragments.
• Construct sentences that are incoherent (spoken and written).
• Say words that are unidentifiable.
• Not understand other people's discussions.
• Take a figure of speech for its literal meaning.

The severity of these symptoms is dependent upon the extent of harm and location of the brain damage. Some people may be able to understand when others are talking to them fairly well, but they struggle to find the appropriate choice of words when attempting to speak. On the contrary, others may speak more fluidly than they write.

The three types of aphasia that a medical professional will look for when making a diagnosis include:

• Nonfluent aphasia
• Fluent aphasia
• Global aphasia