Disease of aphasia - what is it?

As a result of damage to areas of the brain that are responsible for speech, aphasia may occur. What it is? This disease is characterized by partial or complete loss of speech. As a rule, the ailment has a sudden nature and arises from a head injury or a stroke. However, in some cases, the disease can develop gradually, for example against the background of infection, brain tumors, dementia.

With aphasia, the ability to speak and understand speech is almost completely lost in a person. In addition, a sick person is not able to read and write. In general, this disease affects people of advanced age, but it is possible to develop aphasia in children.

Classification of aphasia

• Sensory aphasia. What it is? This is a disorder that occurs as a result of damage to the temporal lobe of the brain, usually left. This disease is also called aphasia Wernicke. Patients with this ailment can talk with long sentences that have no meaning, construct new words themselves and add them to sentences. Because of this, their speech is almost impossible to understand. Also, with aphasia, Wernicke is difficult for a person to understand someone else's speech. Since the areas of the brain that control the movements are not damaged, the behavior and movements of the patient are quite adequate.

• Motor aphasia. What it is? This is a speech disorder that occurs due to damage to the frontal lobe of the brain. Another name - aphasia Broca. Since speech with aphasias is difficult to give, they are able to pronounce only simple, short sentences, skipping prepositions and some words. The frontal lobe of the brain partially regulates motility, so Broca's aphasia can often be accompanied by weakness of the right arm and leg or paralysis.

• Total aphasia. This condition develops as a result of damage to significant areas of the brain responsible for speech. There is total aphasia complete inability to pronounce words and understand the speech of another person.

Symptoms of aphasia

A person suffering from sensory aphasia, fluently pronounces normal words, including sentences in meaningless phonemes, but not realizing their meaning. Patients with such a disease realize that their speech can not be understood by others.

People with motor aphasia are able to understand the speech of others relatively well. But there are difficulties with pronunciation of words. Usually, writing and speaking are broken, which creates difficulties in communication. Also, with Broca's aphasia, anomie (inability to correctly name objects) may be present.

Aphasia: treatment of the disease

Therapy of aphasia is primarily aimed at restoring the normal ability of a person to communicate. The services of a professional speech therapist at early stages of the disease give good results: the sooner the therapy is started, the more chances for recovery.

One of the most important conditions for successful treatment is the direct participation of family members in it. Relatives of the patient with aphasia should adhere to the following recommendations:

• Talk simple, short sentences;

• Repeat, if necessary, important phrases;

• Communicate in a natural way, not focusing on the disease;

• Try not to correct the patient's speech;

• Talk with the patient as often as possible;

• Do not rush, giving time to reprimand the sentence.

From this article you learned about a disease such as aphasia: what it is, what are the causes, symptoms and methods of treatment.