As I always mind writting papers [not easy thing to do while being ESL - gramma can be a bitch], this one was a pure enjoyment to write/read/present. My teacher was impressed, but then.. she's been always impressed and yet, difficult to cooperate with [forget answering your emails and be prepared for reading sensless emails on some weird stuff you never inquired about]. So yeah, to the enjoyment of those whose patenrs have alcoholic issues, like my mom, there's a light somwhere at the end of the tunnel that it might not be only of their life choices. I want to say that there might be something more to it, but I won't.. I stopped excussiong my mom's abnormal behaior looong ago..
Abstract
Aphasia is a damage to portions of brain responsible for language, resulting in language loss. Strokes, cerebral tumors and lesions, trauma or accidents are some of the causes. Blood flow to the injured area of the brain is interrupted, depriving the brain of oxygen, thus resulting in the death of brain cells. The outcome is speech disorder, speech defects, loss of speech expression, loss of comprehension of speech and written language. (MedicineNet.com). The most common aphasias are Wernicke’s aphasia, named after Dr. Carl Wernicke who identified it in1870s, and Broca’s aphasia, named after Dr. Paul Broca, a French physician, who first identified it in 1861. (Feldman R.S., 2006). The purpose of this paper is to identify the anatomical and behavioral differences between Wernicke’s and Broca’s aphasia.
Location
Wernicke’s aphasia is caused by neurological damage to the hemispheric cortex of the temporal lobe of the brain, in the Wernicke’s area, namely the Brodmans area 22, situated in the posterior area of the superior temporal gyrus of the dominant hemisphere.
Broca’s aphasia is located in the frontal lobe of the anterior regions of the brain, including the left frontal lobe region of Brodmans 44 and 45, known as the Brocas region. (Wikipedia.com).
Anatomical differences.
Both, Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia occur in the left hemisphere of the brain, which controls the right side of the body, along with speech and language abilities. Broca's aphasia affects the anterior frontal lobe adjacent to the primary motor cortex, while Wernicke's aphasia affects the posterior portion of the temporal lobe.
Behavioral differences
The main distinction between these two disorders is that Broca's aphasia limits speech, while Wernicke's aphasia limits comprehension. (Carroll, D.1999). Individuals with Wernicke's aphasia usually have great difficulty understanding speech and are therefore often unaware of their mistakes. Wernicke’s aphasia results in a sensory dysprosody, causing inability to perceive the pitch, rhythm, and emotional tone of speech. Speech is preserved, but language content is incorrect, varying from the person adding a few incorrect or nonexistent words, to profuse outpouring of jargon. Grammar, syntax, rate and intonation and stress are normal. The patient usually substitutes one word for another, example telephone for television. Comprehension and repetition of speech are poor. (www.nidnd.com). Patients with Broca’s aphasia exhibit the problem of agrammatism and have difficulty initiating speech. The speech is labored and halting. The intonation and stress pattern are absent. Their language is disjointed with poor sentence construction and inflection. (www.nidcd.com).
Disabilities.
Individuals with Wernicke's aphasia speak fluently, but with no informative purpose. This according to Carroll, D is known as "fluent aphasia.” The individuals usually have no physical weakness as their brain injury is not near the parts of the brain that control movement. An example of a Wernicke's aphasic speaking as demonstrated by author Carroll, D, is as follows: “Well this is .... mother is away here working her work out o'here to get her better, but when she's looking, the two boys looking in other part. One their small tile into her time here. She's working another time because she's getting, too.” The aphasic has problems expressing thoughts to their audience. The sentence structure does not follow correct grammatical patterns, and ultimately, there is no meaning. Moreover, their comprehension level is more reduced than a patient with Broca's aphasia. (Carroll, D). Patients are unable to follow written and verbal commands, or name objects making abundant verbal errors, though speech is preserved. (Aphasia world.com).
Patients with Broca’s aphasia also have hemiparesis. The aphasic looses production of complete sentence structures in speech and writing. The individual may retain the usage of nouns and verbs, but loose all forms of pronouns, articles, and conjunctions. They struggle to speak more than one word at a time, requiring enormous effort; thus Broca’s aphasia is referred to as "non-fluent aphasia". (Carroll, D). The author gives an example of Broca’s aphasic speech as follows: “Yes ... ah ... Monday ... er Dad and Peter H ... (his own name), and Dad ... er hospital ... and ah ... Wednesday ... Wednesday nine o'clock ... and.” This passage shows the difficulty in interpreting a patient with Broca's aphasia.
Conclusion
Aphasia research is exploring more ways to evaluate and treat the condition in order to better understand the functioning of the brain. Brain imaging helps in determining the severity of brain damage and degree of aphasia. New drugs are being researched to reduce the severity of aphasia. (www.nidcd.com). It is justified in saying that aphasia completely changes a persons normal functioning as a human being. The aphasic while starting from the beginning is severely limited by their disabilities and memory loss.
References as always, upon request.
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