Afasia

Nota:

• Source: Vendrell, J. M. (2001). Las afasias: semiología y tipos clínicos. Revista de neurología, 32(10), 980-986.

1. Concept

   Nota:

   • Language disorder caused by brain injury in a person who could previously talk normally.
   1. Types
      1. Broca

         Nota:

         • Verbal expression very affected and a relatively better understanding, although also affected. The spontaneous language presents an important alteration of the articulatory mechanisms, restricted vocabulary and significant reduction of the length of the sentence; phonemic paraphasies occur and each sound element requires a particular effort to be articulated. They also present agraphia and occasionally ideomotor apraxia.
      2. Conduction

         Nota:

         • The spontaneous language shows a fluid articulation, but with the presence of anomic disorders and phonemic paraphasias. Understanding is relatively preserved, although discrete problems can be observed for phonemic discrimination and sentence comprehension. The most important semiologic data is a difficulty for repetition.
      3. Alexia

         Nota:

         • Inhability to read due to brain damage.
      4. Global

         Nota:

         • The term global aphasia is used when both expressive and receptive functions of language are seriously affected.
      5. AnOmic

         Nota:

         • Altered ability to name (anomia) is the most common of aphasic disorders. When this disorder is very marked, the spontaneous language is plagued by circumlocutions that try to replace the lack of the name, or the patient uses to use words "to fill".
      6. Wernicke

         Nota:

         • The language presents a fluid articulation, although with abundant parafasias, and a serious disorder of the understanding. The paraphasias can be of phonetic or semantic type and the use of the grammatical elements is altered. Reading and writing are similarly affected.