Wernicke's Aphasia

Language is an ability that many of us take for granted in everyday life. For those with aphasia, it is a daily struggle to overcome and effective communication is a goal to strive for. Aphasia patients are able to think, perhaps as well as the average person, but they simply cannot convey their ideas or thoughts easily. The Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination is an excellent examination for the diagnosis of the presence and type of aphasia, and for the location of brain damage. The Minnesota Test for Differential Diagnosis of Aphasia has been shown to be the most comprehensive assessment of the overall patient’s strengths and weaknesses in regard to language; it also allows for physicians to predict recovery accurately. Though it is no longer as popular or applicable as newer diagnostic tests, such as the BDAE, it is still an accurate assessment for aphasia. I think this is the paradox in neurological assessment: as technological advances improve, older assessments are becoming invalidated- though they are not inaccurate assessments. New advances and knowledge are being acquired in medicine every day, therefore there is always room for improvement (Holland, 2008). One of the biggest cons to the two batteries I mentioned in this paper is the fact that they are both time consuming- for both the patient and the

Aphasia is an acquired language disorder that affects a person’s ability to understand oral and written language, speaking and writing. It is estimated that one third of those who survive stroke have aphasia (Department of Health, 2007). Most patients with aphasia exhibit spontaneous recovery, usually in the first 2-3 months following stroke onset (Godecke, Hird, Lalor, Rai, & Phillips, 2012). However, 30-40% of these patients may experience long-term post-stroke aphasia (Bakheit et al., 2007). Continued rehabilitative treatments with the speech and language pathologists (SLPs) are not as significantly effective due to the current high demands on limited resources (Palmer et al., 2012), which reduced the availability of face-to-face speech

Human beings occasionally suffer bad damage to particular parts of their brains. Unfortunately, these injuries may lead to major failure of speech production, understanding language and comprehension which most of the patients suffer it permanently. This impairment is called Aphasia. Gayle (2012) states that people with aphasia fail to understand sentence comprehension although it is a simple sentence. She also mentioned that aphasia patients also have difficulty in reading and understanding speeches. According to Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams (2011), aphasia is a scientific term used to explained language disorder due to brain injuries caused by diseases or trauma. In other words, aphasia involves partial or total loss of the ability to

The Wernicke’s area is considered the second language area of the brain because it helps control how the brain understands languages; in contrast to the function of the

The right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for visualisation, creativity, imagination and negative emotions. The left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for logic, language, mathematics and positive emotions. Lateralisation or the specialisation of the two hemispheres of the brain allows the brain to function more effectively as each hemisphere becomes more efficient at communicating and processing information (Wolfe, 2010, p. 48; Woolfolk & Margetts, 2013, p. 72). When reading a story the right side of the brain works out the meaning of the story, whilst the left side of the brain is used for grammar and the arrangement of words (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2013, p. 72). Language is also processed in both hemispheres of the brain with the recognition of spoken words and sounds. The left hemisphere controls the production of speech. Plasticity also allows the brain to develop new or alternate pathways through experience, ensuring both hemispheres of the brain are communicating effectively (O'Donnell et al., 2016, p. 100). No activity involves the use of one single part of the brain but instead involves many different areas of the brain working together, so experts believe there is no such thing as right or left-brained

Introduction: It is a well-known fact that the left hemisphere of the brain is the “language hemisphere.” However, very few people know that the right hemisphere is also an important contributor to speech, language, and communication. Right hemisphere syndrome is a lesion in the right hemisphere of the brain that results from factors such as stokes, tumors, traumatic brain injury, or other neurological diseases (Blake, 2010).

Aphasia is a language disorder that results from damage to portions of the brain that are responsible for language. For most people, these are parts of the left side (hemisphere) of the brain. Aphasia usually occurs suddenly, often as the result of a stroke or head injury, but it may also develop slowly, as in the case of a brain tumor. The disorder impairs the expression and understanding of language as well as reading and writing. “Aphasia may co-occur with speech disorders such as dysarthria or apraxia of speech, which also result from brain damage”. (Sarno 23)

Aphasia is a language disorder that can be the result of a brain injury. An individual that is suffering from aphasia may experience difficulty speaking, writing, reading, or comprehending. There are three different types of Aphasia that differ in various ways. First, Wernicke’s Aphasia is the inability to grasp the meaning of words and sentences that have been produced by another individual. This type of aphasia is also known as “fluent aphasia” or “receptive aphasia”. Wernicke patients’ speech may come across like a jumble of words or jargon, but it is very well articulated and they have no issue producing their own connected speech. If the patient is consecutively making errors, it is common for them to be unaware of their difficulties, and not realize that their sentences don’t make sense. The severity of the disorder varies depending on the patient, and the disorder results form damage in the left posterior temporal region of the brain, which is also known as Wernicke’s area.

A client who is 65 years old and right handed demonstrates receptive aphasia manifestations after a left posterior superior temporal gyrus and left inferior parietal lobe infarct. Knowledge about the anatomy and function of the nervous system comes in handy to explain his characteristics. Given that the client is right handed the laterality explains that his language is dominated by the left hemisphere, which is where the lesion occurred. It is estimated that “90% or more of neurologically normal right-handers are left-hemisphere dominant for language” (Loring,et al., 1990). The middle cerebral artery which circulates blood to the entire lateral surface of the brain especially the language cortex was affected in this client during a stroke. (Bhatnagar, 2013). The brain is compartmentalized into areas for processing specific

It was thought provoking experience while caring patients with impaired communication which arose many questions to be researched. In general, it is interesting and challenging for nurses to assess, diagnose and care neurologically ill patients due to their different type of issues for example functional, sensory, motor problems one at time or combined together. It was challenging to work with stroke patients who became aphasic after stroke. ‘Aphasia is the loss of the ability to understand or formulate language which is caused by brain

Aphasia can be defined as an impairment of language that occurs due to focal brain damage to the language dominant hemisphere ( Darley, 1990). Several researchers have been able to prove that Aphasics tend to Communicate better than they talk, as at least one of the language domains remain intact. Aphasia clients with verbal limitations tend to compensate it by other modes of communication such as gestures, writing, sign language, etc.. Traumatic Brain Injury ( TBI), on the other hand, is a heterogenous disorder that is associated with the presence of multifocal cerebral damage. Most clients with permenant cognitive deficits after the TBI is characterized

The Wernicke area is located in the posterior third of the upper temporal convolution of the left hemisphere of the brain. This area appears to be uniquely important for the knowledge of speech sounds and is considered to be the receptive language or language comprehension, center. Damage to the Wernicke area may result in a language disorder known as Wernicke aphasia. Children with damage of this area has difficulty understanding language; speech is typically fluent but is empty of content and characterized by circumlocutions, a high incidence of vague

Expressive Aphasia (Broca's aphasia) is a syndrome that results from damage to anterior regions of the brain that are responsible for language. According to Kiernan, Barr, and Rajakum (2013), this disorder is located at the left posterior inferior frontal gyrus or inferior frontal operculum, also known as Broca's area (Brodmann area 45 and Brodmann area 44) (p. 244).Typical causes of expressive aphasia may include brain infection, brain tumor, or dementia such as Alzheimer's disease.

The limitations of rehabilitation efforts have set off an interest in finding other solutions to improve the neurological recovery, and scientists have reviewed several therapies, such as antidepressants, which is found to enhance a person's motor ability to be restored and Alzheimer's disease drugs to boost recovery from aphasia, which also includes problems in speaking, writing and understanding a spoken or written

The purpose of this paper is to pursue one important and fundamental aim: language and the brain are purely inseparable since it allows us to perform essential tasks such as generating, comprehending and expressing speech. With damage to the brain, individuals can no longer perform such tasks which can ultimately lead to many types of language disorders. The focus of this paper is Broca’s aphasia, a language disorder characterized by the inability to produce written and spoken speech. Damage to the brain can cause many types of speech impairments as well as comprehension deficits.