What is Aphasia?
Everything You Need to Know About Aphasia and its Types – Aphasia is a language condition caused by injury to the parts of the brain that control language. These areas are located on the left side of the brain for the majority of people. Aphasia normally strikes quickly, frequently as a result of a stroke or a concussion, but it can also develop gradually as a result of a brain tumour or a degenerative neurological condition. Language expression and comprehension, as well as reading and writing, are all hampered by the disease. Aphasia is frequently associated with speech abnormalities such as dysarthria or apraxia of speech, both of which are caused by brain injury.
What causes Aphasia?
Damage to one or more of the brain’s language regions causes aphasia. A stroke is the most common cause of brain damage. A stroke happens when blood flow to a portion of the brain is cut off by a blood clot or a leaking or broken vessel. When brain cells are deprived of their usual supply of blood, which provides oxygen and vital nutrients, they die. Severe head injuries, brain tumours, bullet wounds, brain infections, and degenerative neurological illnesses like Alzheimer’s disease are some of the other causes of brain injury.
Three types of Aphasia:
Broca’s Aphasia
Broca’s aphasia makes it difficult for people to communicate, yet they can usually understand language. Because strokes that induce Broca’s aphasia frequently injure other parts of the brain, people may have trouble moving, reading, or writing.
Wernicke’s Aphasia
Wernicke’s aphasia is named after Wernicke, the scientist who discovered the parts of the brain that control our ability to grasp language. The temporal lobe contains several parts. When people with Wernicke’s aphasia talk, they are unable to understand others or even themselves.
Wernicke’s aphasia, on the other hand, is impossible to comprehend. Wernicke’s aphasia is a type of aphasia in which stroke survivors compose phrases with words arranged in what appears to be a random order. Logorrhea is a term used to describe this type of verbal pattern.
Global Aphasia
This is a kind of aphasia that arises when brain injury is so extensive that both Broca’s and Wernicke’s language regions are affected. Survivors suffering from global aphasia are unable to understand or talk at all. People with global aphasias may be able to communicate through written language in some situations.
How can it be cured?
Following a brain injury, the brain undergoes significant changes that aid recovery. As a result, even without treatment, people with aphasia generally show remarkable gains in their language and communication abilities within the first few months. However, some aphasia often persists beyond this initial period of recuperation. Speech-language therapy is used to assist individuals restore their ability to communicate in certain situations.
Language and communication abilities can improve over time, according to research, and are occasionally accompanied by new activity in brain tissue around the injured area.