Signs of total aphasia and therapies

Total aphasia is a condition in which there is a complete lack of understanding of speech and its pronunciation. This often occurs immediately after a stroke, when brain damage is widespread. With such a patient, not only verbal contact is completely lost, but also gestural.

Causes of the disease

At its core, total aphasia is a combination of motor and sensory aphasia in lesions in the basin of the middle cerebral artery, sometimes the cause of the disease can be the occlusion of the carotid artery.

If the lesion has occurred as a result of the tumor process, the changes are noted in the Broca and Wernicke zones, and this means a violation of all possible functions of speech.

The first stage after a severe brain injury is also often represented by total aphasia.

Malignant tumor with its proliferation, and also, if it is localized in the cortex, very quickly leads to violations of speech functions, including global character. With a benign neoplasm this process is less pronounced.

How total aphasia is manifested

Most of these patients either have absolutely no speech, or they only say certain simple words. Most often, with this change, other symptoms also manifest themselves: right-sided hemiplegia, a violation of sensitivity and problems with eye-leading to the left with loss of visual fields( homonymous hemianopsia).

Immediately after a stroke, the patient does not have intentional reproduction of sounds, but there is still the possibility of moaning or coughing. Accompany such a state of expressed absentmindedness of consciousness, a constant propensity to sleep, a reluctance to perform any actions, even in the knowledge of their necessity.

Immediately after acute stroke a patient may be accompanied by a co-morbid state, in which it is not possible to diagnose any other disorders, including speech disorders.

In the residual phase of the disease, the symptomatology remains the same, there may be a slight speech dynamics. Sometimes there are individual sounds or speech embolus. Automatic, nominative speech is absent. There is also no reflected type of speech. The patient does not understand the words addressed to him, occasionally they can catch especially important for them some moments and carry out one or two simple requests. Gestures for a patient with a diagnosis such as total aphasia after a stroke also mean little. Reading and writing for him is not available.

For all serious disorders, the patient does not lose the ability to move his lips or tongue and is in full consciousness. He constantly repeats the same set of words. Science still can not explain the phenomenon that brutal words are most often used.

Relatives should remember that a patient with aphasia, even in its most severe manifestation, is not a person with mental disabilities. Therefore, the ratio must necessarily remain at the same level. Isolation for such a person is threatened with death!

In right-handed people, a marked defeat is observed in the left hemisphere zone, while left-handers have the opposite. The tendency to slow recovery of speech is observed mainly with deviations associated with vascular pathology.

Treatment methods for total aphasia

When trying to restore lost functions, many practitioners note the unique ability of the human body to recover. This can also be noted in relation to the brain.

With total( global) aphasia, patients need a full rehabilitation. The beginning of treatment consists in applying maximum efforts to reduce the boundaries of the pathological focus and restore minimal communication skills. After that, there is an improvement, and total aphasia is replaced by another type of violation, less rough, it is necessary to start classes with a speech therapist.

This can last quite a long time in order to get an effective result. Continue classes and need at home, at least three hours a day.

Special exercises are prescribed for each patient. Sometimes computer therapy helps. Relatives and close people are explained their behavior towards the patient and the help that is required of them.

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