Final Exam Flashcards
What is Broca’s aphasia?
• Difficulty for patients to express themselves verbally
- characterized by slow, laborious, and non-fluent speech
- They have something to say, but have trouble saying it – they are well aware of their condition and very frustrated by it
- They can understand language, just not speak it – BUT there are still some comprehension issues
What are articulation problems?
movement of mouth to make the appropriate speech sounds or a sequencing problem with words
What is agrammatism?
difficulty using grammatical devices and comprehending them
- Difficulty with word conjugation or order, such as verb endings (-ed)
- People typically don’t derive meaning from the sequence of words or the grammar of sentences, so they almost exclusively use content words (nouns, adjectives, etc.) without any function words (the, on, about, etc.)
What is a content word?
Noun, verb, adjective, or adverb that conveys meaning
What is a function word?
A word that conveys little meaning but is important for the grammatical structure
What is anomia?
difficulty in finding (remembering) the appropriate word to describe something
What is anomic aphasia?
When people have a hard time thinking of the word they want to say
- they can understand what other people say just fine and they talk just fine, but they describe things in circumlocution
What is circomlocution?
Strategy by which people with anomia find alternative ways to say something when they are unable to think of the most appropriate word
What are subvocal articulations?
very slight movements of the muscles involved in speech that do not actually cause obvious moment
What is stuttering?
Speech disorder characterized by frequent pauses, prolongations of sounds, or repetitions of sounds, syllables, or words that disrupt the normal flow of speech
- These people do have the ability to speak without a stutter, as is typically seen when they sing, speak aloud with another person, or read in cadence with a rhythmic stimulus
- Stuttering appears to be a problem of selecting, initiating, and executing the motor sequences required for fluent speech
What is dysgraphia?
Trouble with writing
What is phonological dysgraphia?
A condition where people cannot spell words by sounding them out (common in Broca’s aphasia) - they can only write words by imagining how they look
- Thus, they have to be very familiar with how the word looks or they cannot write it
- They cannot write non-words that sound fine, like blint or cak
What is orthographic dysgraphia?
A condition where people cannot spell words by visualizing them (common in people with damage to VWFA) – they can only sound words out
- This means they can’t correctly spell any words that have an irregular spelling (ex: half –> haff / busy –> bizzy)
What is a closed-head injury?
Caused by a blow to the head with a blunt object
- The bran comes into violent contact with the inside of the skull (coup)
- The brain the recoils in the opposite direction and smashes against the skull again (contrecoup)
What is an open head injury?
Penetration brain injuries that cause damage to the portion of the brain that is damaged by the object or the bone
- There’s also damage to the blood vessels that can deprive parts of the brain of their normal blood supply
- Accumulation of blood within the brain can cause further damage by exerting pressure within the brain
What is seizure disorder?
preferred term for epilepsy
- Sometimes, if neurons that make up motor systems are involved, a seizure can cause a convulsion, which is wild, uncontrollable activity of the muscles
- Most seizures don’t cause convulsions
What is a partial (focal) seizure?
Seizure that begins at a focus and remains localized, not generalizing to the rest of the brain
- a simple partial seizure is a seizure that does not produce loss of consciousness
a complex partial seizure is a seizure that produces a loss of consciousness
What is a generalized seizure?
Seizure that involves most of the brain (non-localized seizure)
- includes tonic-clonic seizures, atonic seizures, and absence seizures
What is an aura?
sensation that precedes a seizure – its exact nature depends on the location of the seizure focus
- Happens regardless of it being partial or full
What is a tonic-clonic seizure?
A generalized, grand mal seizure that typically starts with an aura that is followed by a tonic phase and then a clonic phase
- This type of seizure involves convulsions
What is a tonic phase?
first phase of tonic-clonic seizure, in which all of the patient’s skeletal muscles are contracted
What is a clonic phase?
second phase of a tonic-clonic seizure, in which patient shows rhythmic jerking movements
What are benzodiazepines?
They work by increasing effectiveness of inhibitory synapses
What is “errors of metabolism”?
Can cause brain damage or impair brain development
- genetic abnormalities in which recipe for a particular protein is in error
- typically, the cause is that an enzyme is not synthesized on account of mutations in both copies of the gene
- If the enzyme is a critical one, results can be very serious