Aphasia

A aphasia (Greek ἀφασία Aphasia, speechlessness ') is an acquired language disorder due to a lesion (damage ) in the dominant, usually the left hemisphere of the brain.

Aphasias occur after various diseases ( stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain hemorrhage after venous thrombosis, tumors, inflammatory diseases, intoxication) after completion of language acquisition on. They cause impairments in the various language modalities ( speaking, listening, writing and reading ), but also in non-language areas in varying degrees of severity. Linguistic and non-linguistic signs are combined in a characteristic way, which is why aphasia or aphasic disorders are also referred to as multimodal problems. The Union of European Phoniater ( UEP ) defined aphasia based on concepts of O. Schindler as a partial or total loss of one or more linguistic or nonlinguistischer, already trained communication skills as a result of a lesion of the brain structures for the encoding and / or decoding of any messages any difficulty, expressive or impressive way, on every communication channel.

Important is the definition of aphasia as a speech disorder of speech disorders such as dysarthria of, but speech and language disorder may also occur together.

The interdisciplinary aphasiology deals with the diagnosis and treatment of aphasia. Participating medical subjects are, eg, neurology, Phoniatrics, further, for example, linguistics, psychology, neurobiology, speech therapy.

Originally called aphasia a complete loss of speech, while lighter impairments were occupied by the term dysphasia. Due to practical problems of definition, there was a meaning extension of aphasia for all cases of acquired disorder.

• 2.1 Therapy
• 2.2 success
• 2.3 Self-help groups

• 5.1 Focal Points

Species

Aphasias are classified differently by different authors (groups). In Germany the more clinically oriented classification of Aachen School to Walter Huber and Klaus Poeck is the most widely used, not least because it is the result of a standardized diagnostic procedure, the Aachen Aphasia Test ( AAT ). There are there four main types ('standard Syndrome " ) and several special forms are distinguished:

These complex syndromes consist of symptom structures; they result from a cluster analysis of co-occurrences of the different symptoms. Besides these four main types of aphasia there are rarer special shapes such as transcortical aphasia, for example, from the fact that the affected repeat, but can not speak freely, and conduction aphasia, the most arcuatus of the dominant by lesions in the area of the fasciculus hemisphere produced and for which a severe restriction of Nachsprechens in otherwise largely intact language skills is characteristic.

Another, finer classification, along with another diagnosis method was proposed by Leischner (see literature).

Amnestic or anomic aphasia

Symptom: word finding problems (difficulty in naming objects, etc.). The language is fluent, if there is any difficulty finding words, the target concepts can often be paraphrased. Short-term memory is impaired (eg, traumatic brain injury).

Broca 's aphasia

The Broca 's aphasia was formerly called " motor aphasia ", faltering, labored spontaneous speech with strong word-finding problems. Moderate disturbances of speech comprehension, so that sometimes it comes up in conversation to misunderstandings are often discovered only in direct testing.

Wernicke 's aphasia

Wernicke's aphasia was formerly known as " sensory aphasia ". Flowing language with very different semantic paraphasias ( confusion of words) and phonemic paraphasias ( According twists ) and neologisms ( new words ). In most cases the error of the victims are not perceived. Part of an excessive flow of language ( the logorrhoea ). Strongly restricted speech understanding.

Global aphasia

Global aphasia is the most severe form of aphasia, in which almost no spoken language utterances are possible, and the understanding of language is severely disrupted. Cause is an extensive lesion, which includes the motor and sensory speech center of the dominant hemisphere. Mostly it is a total infarct in the area supplied by the middle cerebral artery.

Aphasia therapy

Aphasia therapy includes different ways to restore the language and other functions following a loss of speech. The aphasic disorders often have enormous psycho- social consequences. Behavioral approaches to language therapy for aphasia include a varied repertoire of techniques to do model- or symptom- oriented. Due to the various disorders / losses several disciplines are needed in therapy, including speech therapy, music therapy, movement therapy.

Forms of therapy

Outpatient aphasia therapy usually takes place in practices for speech therapy (for eg speech therapists, clinical speech scientists, and others) instead. It also means the possibility to carry out the treatment in an outpatient treatment center or in a hospital with outpatient rehabilitation.

Music therapy in aphasia can be directed either to improving the language skills or the secondary consequences (trauma processing, emotional problems, social isolation, etc.).

Computer programs to support the work of the therapy. Visually, they replace the presenting images of maps by the therapist, with pictures / items must be assigned. The audio support helps sounds, words and sentences to hear and to repeat any or in order. The Help by video shows close-ups of the mouth and tongue movements. For inpatient media can be used with particular intensity.

A therapeutically Supervised teletherapy is a special form of computer-assisted therapy. Telematics allows the therapist daily with the patient - to communicate - even over a greater distance away. The aim is to bring daily and even several times daily therapy sessions patients faster and more sustainable at a higher functional level of performance. The exercises ( homework ) done according to regulation and supervision (control) of a therapist. The therapy exercises sent by radio to the treatment station ( patients - Loan a ) transmitted and after completion of the units transferred back to the therapist. The therapist evaluates the results and adapt the exercises. Indications: neurology, orthopedics, cardiology.

Prospects of success

The success of treatment depends on many different factors; so running at the age regeneration processes physiologically slower. An early start of therapy as possible is always desirable. The frequency of treatment and the equipment with technical tools and use of media is of concern. Sufficient physical activity, a lot of practical speaking up for singing is important. The key to success is in any case the committed cooperation of doctor, speech therapist, movement therapist, family and friends.

Self-help groups

An important contribution to the accompaniment of interested parties and their relatives offer self-help groups. In the Federation of rehabilitation of aphasic eV state associations are summarized, which provide with local groups in a regionally specific offer " help themselves ".