Intro to Aphasia

Question 1

How many strokes occur each year?

Answer 1

About 800,000

Question 2

How many strokes result in aphasia?

Answer 2

About 1 third

Question 3

What is the estimated US aphasia prevalence?

Answer 3

2,500,000

Question 4

Are most people knowledgable about aphasia?

Answer 4

NO

Question 5

Who is Gabby Gifford?

Answer 5

Politician, was shot in head and got aphasia, motor impairment. Made address talking about aphasia recently.

Question 6

What are the different perspectives of the definition of aphasia?

Answer 6

Neurological perspective–Aquired language impairment resulting from legion without other impairments. Can be present in all language components.

Neurolinguistic perspective–breakdown in specific domains resulting from lesion

Cognitive perspective–selective breakdown of language processing and cognitive skills from legion

Functional perspective–communication impairment masking competence

Question 7

What does it mean that aphasia is multimodal?

Answer 7

It can impact all modes of communication (receptive communication–auditory comp. and reading comp.), expressive communication (verbal and written language)

Question 8

What does neurogenic mean?

Answer 8

Originated in brain

Question 9

Is aphasia due to a psychogenic issue?

Answer 9

No

Question 10

What does aphasia affect?

Answer 10

Communicative and social functioning, quality of life, quality of life of relatives and caregivers.

Question 11

What is retained in aphasia?

Answer 11

Pragmatics, nonlinguistic behavior, perception, person experiences, world knowledge (may be absent in some people depending on their lesion/injury

Question 12

What are some issues for people with aphasia in terms of service delivery?

Answer 12

Lack of insurance, limited # of visits through insurance, lack of access to rehab due to aphasia being sole disability

Question 13

What aspect of the WHO-ICF should SLPs consider?

Answer 13

Activities and participation–tasks involving language all modalities, daily functional communication tasks. Lack of access = lower quality of life.

Question 14

What are the different potential therapy types for people with aphasia?

Answer 14

1:1(most typical), group therapy, computer based therapy (apps ex: tactus), telepractice, pharmacotherapy(meds for resultant/concomitant disorders, not aphasia itself. Non invasive brain stimulation, behavioral

Question 15

Describe group therapy potential use for someone with aphasia

Answer 15

Didactic (teaching). Provides social and emotional support (multipurpose). Transition between individual tx and discharge or add on technique

Question 16

Describe computer therapy potential use for someone with aphasia

Answer 16

Can use to increase amount and intensity of therapy in a cost effective fahion

Question 17

Describe pharmacotherapy potential use for PWA

Answer 17

Stimulate widespread cerebral activity with neurotransmitters as an attent to improve cognitive substrates of language processing Ex: attention, short term memory, etc

Question 18

Describe noninvasive brain stimulation potential use for PWA

Answer 18

Inhibit/excite cortical areas. Can use repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation or transcranial direct current stimulation. Increased language performance in chronic nonfluent aphasia

Question 19

What is dysarthria?

Answer 19

Speech disorder resulting from damage to central/peripheral nervous system. Paralysis, weakness, incoordination of speech musculature

Question 20

What is apraxia?

Answer 20

Neurogenic, results from impairment in capacity to program sensorimotor commands for positioning and movement. May not have weakness or slowness, no disturbances of conscious thought/language