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When Communication Is Lost
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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >> Several major defined forms of aphasia include:
Broca's aphasia, in which damage to the frontal lobe of the brain severely limits speech. People with this form of the disorder frequently speak in short, meaningful phrases produced with great effort that usually consist of fewer than four words. They are able to understand the speech of others, more or less.
A person with Broca's aphasia may say, "Walk dog" meaning, "I will take the dog for a walk," according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). However, the same sentence could also mean, "You take the dog for a walk," or "The dog walked out of the yard." Text Continues Below
Wernicke's aphasia, in which damage to the temporal lobe results in speech that contains long sentences with no meaning, or additional, unnecessary or newly created words. People with this type of aphasia usually have great difficulty understanding speech and are often unaware of their mistakes.
An example of Wernicke's aphasia speech, according to the NIH: "You know that smoodle pinkered and that I want to get him round and take care of him like you want before," meaning, "The dog needs to go out so I will take him for a walk." Global aphasia, which results from severe damage to extensive portions of the language areas of the brain. People struggling with global aphasia have severe communication difficulties and can be extremely limited in their ability to speak or comprehend.
Treatment for aphasia up until now has been limited mainly to speech therapy, helping people either re-learn speech or pick up tactics for getting around the roadblocks now present in their minds.
One very important way to cope with aphasia is to focus on non-verbal skills, Rao said.
"Non-verbal communication is often better in these people," he said. "It's what you'd do in Italy. You'd use gestures to communicate things such as you need something to drink. If someone gave you hell on the highway, you wouldn't know what they were saying, but you would know to back off."
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Copyright © 2008 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last updated 8/26/2008
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SOURCES: Paul Rao, Ph.D., speech language pathologist, and vice president of clinical services, quality improvement and corporate compliance, National Rehabilitation Hospital, Washington, D.C.; Steven Small, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neurology and psychology, University of Chicago, and medical director, Comprehensive Aphasia Center of Chicago; U.S. National Institutes of Health; The National Aphasia Association
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