Humans make use of their language skills every day, but have you ever imagined a life without these skills? What would it be like if you want to say something, but don’t even have the ability to find the words to complete a sentence?
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A disease called Aphasia is now very common in the elderly population. In this article, you will find information about the types and symptoms of Aphasia, its causes and the history of discovering the causes, and ways to communicate with someone who has Aphasia. Continue to read to explore!
As you may already know, Aphasia is a disorder of language caused by damage in the left hemisphere of the brain. Many people get it after a stroke, too. People would have problems speaking, reading, writing, and comprehending depending on how severe the situation is.
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There are many types of Aphasia and they all cause impairments that are either mild or severe. Below are some common types of Aphasia listed:
1. Expressive Aphasia (non-fluent Aphasia): People with Expressive Aphasia have their thoughts, but have difficulties expressing it. For example, a student might have the thought of using the restroom in the middle of the class, but doesn't know how to ask the teacher.
2. Receptive Aphasia (fluent Aphasia): People with Receptive Aphasia have difficulties comprehending. Because of this, they may also have problems communicating because they don't understand their own words. This is like when we hear someone speaking a foreign language. We know they are saying something, but we can't give meaning to it and can't speak it, either.
3. Anomic Aphasia: People with Anomic Aphasia have difficulties finding the words to express their thoughts. For example, they might want to say "cats eat fish", but the brain just doesn't allow them to find the word "fish", causing them to have problems communicating.
4. Global Aphasia: the most severe type of Aphasia, caused by a stroke. People have difficulties speaking and comprehending, and are unable to read or write. That being said, a person with Global Aphasia can't use language to communicate entirely.
Although Aphasia is causing communication problems in a range from mild to severe, people with any type of Aphasia are definitely suffering. Here is a brief description written by a physician named Lordat in 1843 who got Aphasia and then recovered:
“I noticed that when I wanted to speak I could not find the expressions… The thought was all ready but the sounds that had to express it as intermediary were no longer at my disposition. [a day later] I found myself deprived of the use of almost all words. If some of them remained at my grasp, they were almost useless for me, because I could no longer recall the ways to coordinate them in order to express a thought.”
People have been getting Aphasia since a long time ago, and neuroscientists were trying hard to figure out what causes the disorder.
In 1836, a neuroscientist named Marc Dax first said that Aphasia is caused by damage to the left hemisphere of the brain. However, after writing his conclusion, Marc Dax had passed away, and his conclusion never reached a popular audience. The next person that concluded Aphasia is caused by damage to the left hemisphere of the brain was Paul Broca, and this was about fifteen years after Dax’s passing. Broca was a famous French neurologist, and by preserving his dead patients’ brains in alcohol, he was able to figure out the involvement of the left hemisphere of the brain in Aphasia. (FUN FACT: the brains Broca used to discover the causes of Aphasia are now in Musee Dupuytren in Paris, preserved in alcohol.) In one of the brains of Broca’s patients, he found a huge lesion in a part of the left hemisphere, and this area was later called “Broca’s area”, which is responsible for non-fluent Aphasia, also called Expressive Aphasia.
People with Aphasia have difficulties communicating, and it is difficult for both the patients and the people that want to communicate with them. So how do we communicate with someone that has Aphasia?
Although people with Aphasia lose their communication skills, they still have control over their facial expressions. Maybe someone with Aphasia can only say a few easy words, but by the facial expressions and the tone of his/her voice, communication is still possible even though Aphasia might seem like a barrier.
Here are some tips to communicate with someone with Aphasia:
Have the person’s attention before speaking.
Lower or eliminate background sounds. (Find a quiet place.)
Keep communication simple. (Simplify your own sentence structure, reduce your rate of speaking, and emphasize key words.)
Give them time to speak.
Communicate with gestures and facial expressions or make use of drawings, writings, and other things additional to speech.
For other tips and information, check this communication poster out: https://www.aphasia.org/aphasia-resources/communication-poster/
Aphasia is not a rare disorder. There are more than three million cases per year in the United States. However, if we keep encouraging people with Aphasia to speak and surround them with love, everything is going to be fine.
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Overall, communication is important to our everyday life, but we should still see hope even though we lose our communication skills. So once again, everything is going to be fine.
Written by: Benetta Wang
References:
“An Overview of Aphasia.” WebMD, 15 Aug. 2012, www.webmd.com/brain/aphasia-causes-symptoms-types-treatments#1.
---. “Aphasia.” Coursera, www.coursera.org/lecture/neurobiology/aphasia-PFTrm. Accessed 2 July 2020.
“Home.” National Aphasia Association, 6 Mar. 2018, aphasia.org.
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