aphasia

The aphasia consists in the total or partial loss of the ability to speak as a consequence of an injury that occurred in the brain areas destined language. It is a failure in the language centers of the brain that prevents or decreases the ability to be understood through the spoken word, writing or signs. However, the affected person retains the intelligence and the phonatory organs.

The term was coined by Armand Trousseau, a French expert who served as a professor of medicine at the hospital Hotel-Dieu. The word aphasia originates from a Greek word that in Spanish is understood as the "Inability to speak".

Specialists say that aphasia can arise as a result of a trauma or as a consequence of a brain infection. The strokes (that can be triggered by a thrombotic ischemia or embolism, for example), head trauma (generally caused by an accident) and localized infections or diffuse (What brain abscess or encephalitis) are some of those responsible for aphasia.

However, experts emphasize that the main cause of aphasia is that a person suffers a cerebral stroke. A disease is that results in damage to the brain as a result of the rupture of a vessel of the same or an interruption in what is the normal blood supply.

It should also be noted that aphasias can be cortical (from a perisilvian injury), transcortical or anomic. Cortical aphasia is the most common, while transcortical is characterized by preservation of repetition. Lastly, anomic aphasia is the mildest.

However, the most common classification of aphasia is as follows: broca or major motor aphasia, transcortical motor aphasia, Wernicke's aphasia, global, conductive and amnesic.

The first of the aforementioned is characterized because it is one of the most complex variables that seriously affects both language and writing, so much so that even in its acute phase the patient is not only mute but also does not understand and In addition, it does not have the capacity to communicate.

No less serious is Wernicke's aphasia, which is the one that occurs in patients in whom, although they have fluent speech, experience serious problems in understanding, leading to even total misunderstanding of everything they are told or they listen. However, in the process of recovery of these patients great achievements can be achieved.

Thus, in this specific case, health workers recommend that those make use of computers in rehabilitation therapy because, among other things, they allow them to carry out the communication they want but which in principle they cannot do on their own. But it is only a matter of time before they can recover.

To treat aphasia, it is recommended to combat and / or control disease base that has generated it. There are cases, however, in which the person You can recover from aphasia without the need for treatment. This spontaneous recovery usually occurs after a transient ischemic attack (TIA), where the flow of blood to the brain is temporarily interrupted (although it is quickly restored).