BROCA’S APHASIA: BRAIN IS GOOD, WORDS YACK
Many of us have never heard of aphasia, while aphasia certainly is something that changes our lives because we rely so much on communicating with others.
Language is a characteristic human ability to communicate. Aphasia is a communication disorder, so it’s a disruption to the language system; it can affect people’s ability to produce language and their ability to understand language.
This usually manifests itself as difficulty speaking or understanding spoken language, but reading, typing, listening, and writing is also usually affected. Aphasia can also interfere with the use of manual sign language. Speaking problems are the most common.
This condition was the reason forcing famous actor Bruce Willis to retire from acting. 67-year-old Willis is best known for playing John McClane in the “Die Hard” movies.
Any pathological process that leads to damage or dysfunction of the language network can cause aphasia. The most common causes of aphasia are strokes. There are, of course, other causes of anything that can damage the brain and, depending on where the damage is, can result in aphasia. So, it could be head trauma; it could be a neurodegenerative disease, could be brain surgery; depending on where it takes in the brain, any of these things could affect the part of the brain that is responsible for language and produce aphasia. Although these are not anatomically separate areas, one of the most important neural networks serving critical language functions is Broca’s area or Brodmann’s area 44 and 45.
Broca’s aphasia, also known as expressive aphasia, is named after the French physician Paul Broca, a type of aphasia language disorder after a stroke, so it has a sudden onset. Individuals with this condition struggle to express themselves. Understanding is good, but finding the word is complex, and intelligence remains intact. People with Broca’s aphasia know what they want to say, but they struggle to find the terms, which can result in slow and effortful speech; their language comprehension is relatively preserved.
Personally, when I watched the videos of people with Broca’s aphasia, it reminded me of the time when I was just starting to learn a new language, and I wanted to speak. I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t make sentences or even couldn’t find the word that I wanted.
Speech and language therapy is the primary mode of treatment for people with aphasia. This aims to restore some of the individual’s inability to communicate as well as provide alternative methods of communication if required; for example, patients may find that they can communicate by singing instead of talking as it uses a different area of our brain.
