Aphasia is a speech disorder caused by damage to the part of the brain responsible for speech, usually in the left hemisphere. There are three main types: Broca’s, Wernicke’s, and global. Treatment such as speech therapy is often necessary.
Aphasia is a speech disorder that occurs when the part of the brain responsible for speech becomes damaged. The damage usually occurs in the left hemisphere of the brain and can occur quite quickly in cases such as a head injury or stroke. Brain tumors can also cause aphasia, but the symptoms of these may only be seen gradually over a longer period of time.
Sufferers may also develop impairments in facial expressions and speech comprehension. They also have difficulty reading and writing. A stroke is a very common cause of aphasia. A stroke occurs when brain cells die due to a lack of blood reaching the brain, resulting in a lack of vital nutrients and oxygen. Other causes of brain injury are brain infections and severe blows to the head.
There are three main types of aphasia. Sufferers of Broca’s aphasia have had damage to the frontal lobe of the brain. They have to make a great effort to speak and speech is usually in short, meaningful sentences. The person will often leave out short words like “is” and “the”. Broca is characterized as non-fluent aphasia, due to short sentence lengths.
People with Broca can usually understand the speech of others. They are also aware of their own speech and how others hear them. This can cause great frustration for sufferers as they try to produce longer sentences. People with Broca usually experience paralysis or weakness in their right arm or leg. This is because the frontal lobe of the brain is also responsible for body movement.
People who have suffered damage to the temporal lobe of the brain may have Wernicke’s aphasia. This is a fluent aphasia that causes the sufferer to speak in long sentences that have no meaning. They add unnecessary words or often create new words. They are usually unaware of these mistakes, as they have great difficulty understanding speech. They also usually do not have body weakness, as the temporal lobe is not needed for body movement.
A third type of aphasia is known as global aphasia. This results from damage to large parts of the brain. Patients have extreme difficulty communicating verbally and understanding language.
Aphasia usually occurs in the mid to late years of life. It can occur in both men and women. An estimated 80,000 people are afflicted each year, and there are over 1 million people in the United States who suffer from it. Some individuals recover completely without treatment, but a large amount of sufferers require treatment such as speech therapy. At present, there are also a large number of research studies underway and new drugs available to help sufferers now and in the future.
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