Actor Bruce Willis was recently diagnosed with Aphasia. Aphasia is a language impairment caused by some type of damage to the brain (typically but not always a stroke, head trauma, or tumor). It can affect a specific area of the brain from head trauma or a brain tumor. Aphasia can come in many different forms, but they are broadly categorized into two groups:
- Expressive aphasia is a type of aphasia that involves saying what you want to say
- Receptive aphasia is a type of aphasia that involves understanding what is said
As a Graduate Student, I became fascinated by learning about the different types of Aphasia. Understanding the different types provide the building blocks for effective treatment. Listed below are the 7 different types of aphasia:
1. Broca’s aphasia
2. Transcortical motor aphasia
3. Global aphasia
4. Wernicke’s aphasia
5. Transcortical sensory aphasia
6. Anomic aphasia
7. Conduction aphasia
Out of these 7 types of aphasia, they are next broken down by fluency (fluent or non-fluent). Furthermore, by the ability to repeat words and auditory comprehension skills. Personally, that’s when I think it can get confusing. Once we separate the categories by fluency, the remaining aphasias have a lot of common presenting characteristics.
As a graduate student at Adelphi, I created a graph from my notes. Given the complexity of aphasia, understanding and remembering the very distinct characteristics is helpful.
With this in mind, I share it in the hopes that it will help your patients in the future.
This article originally appeared at Langfun.com and was written by Britney Minutillo, SLP-CCC.