Aphasia 1 Flashcards
Provide a definition for aphasia (include four main factors)
Aphasia is an acquired communication disorder caused by brain damage, characterized by an impairment of language modalities and might include speaking, listening, reading and writing. There is no impact to motor function.
- Neurogenic (brain damage)
- acquired (previously had language ability that is now partially or completely lost)
- language problems - problems with formulation and interpretation of linguistic symbols
- Aphasia is NOT a problem of sensation, motor function or intellect.
How would you explain aphasia to a family?
It is a language difficulty cause by a brain injury - affecting communication. Aphasia can make it hard to understand words, to speak, to write and to read. People will aphasia are still intelligent and they know what they want to say but just can’t find the words.
What is the most common cause of aphasia?
Stroke (cerebrovascular accident)
How common is stroke?
one in six adults aged between 55-75 will experience a stroke. It is also one of the main causes of death globally
What are the risk factors for stroke that cannot be controlled?
age, gender and family history
what are the risk factors for stroke that can be controlled
- hypertension - high BP
- smoking
- high cholesterol
- obesity
- heart disease
- substance abuse (alcohol leading to high BP)
- diabetes - can speed up athersclerosis
what is athersclerosis?
where arterial walls become roughened and covered with fatty deposits - these deposits are called athersclerotic plaque and reduce blood flow and occlude arteries.
what is anomia?
word finding difficulties - experience of word being at the tip of your tongue
what is circumlocution?
when someone uses descriptors, definitions or sound effects for a target word due to difficulty retrieving the word.
what is agrammatism?
also known as telegraphic speech where the person primarily uses content words like nouns and verbs without conjunctions, articles and prepositions
what is paragrammatism?
where a person uses lots of grammatical elements (e.g. using “ing” and “ed”) and function words (e.g. “with” or “to” but used incorrectly.
What is a phonemic paraphasia?
when someone substitutes, adds or leaves out letters in a word. Can result in real or non-words.
what are the two types of verbal paraphasias, explain them?
Semantic - when someone uses an incorrect word that is semantically related to the target word.
Unrelated/wild paraphasias - when the word used is semantically unrelated.
what is a neologistic paraphasia (neologism)?
an invented word which doesn’t make sense to the listener.
what is jargon
a fluent and well articulated utterance that is full of neologistic paraphasias with connecting words in between.
