Neurologically based communication disorders

Ischemic strokes

Caused by a blocked or interrupted blood supply to the brain

Thrombus

A collection of material that blocks the blood flow, typically due to atherosclerosis

Atherosclerosis

A condition in which cholesterol and other fatty substances buildup in the blood narrowing arteries and obstructing blood flow

Embolus

A mass of arterial debris or a clump of tissue from a tumor that originates somewhere else in the body travels to the brain and gets lodged in a smaller artery and thus blocks blood flow

Infarct

An irreversible cell death that occurs within an hour

Penumbra

Surrounding area of tissue that is not totally deprived of blood flow

Transient ischemic attacks

Smaller ischemic events that are typically broken down by the body within 24 hours

Hemorrhagic strokes

Caused by bleeding in the brain due to ruptured blood vessel

Paraphasia

In expressive language, error, unrelated to motor deficits

Semantic paraphasias

Substitution of one word for another; may be related in meaning or unrelated

phonemic/literal paraphasias

Errors of the sound level; phone in the intended word, maybe substituted omitted or transposed

Neologisms

Non-words a person creates; they are unintelligible, unrelated to the intended war and most are meaningless

Logorrhea

Excessive and inappropriate production of speech, often tangential, and meaningless

Empty speech

Substitution of such general words as this that stuff and thing in place of more specific words

Agrammatic speech

Omission of grammatic features and speech; speech that consists mostly of content words and lacks function words

Anomia

Naming difficulty or word finding deficit with varying severity

Confrontation naming

Naming objects when requested to do so

Circumlocution

Production of nonspecific words and “beating around the bush” often due to word finding problems

Automatic language

Language that is wrote or overlearn and thus spared

Nonfluent aphasias

Limited agrammatic, effortful, halting, and slow speech with impaired prosody

Transcortical motor aphasia

A nonfluent variety caused by lesions in the supplementary motor cortex and or the area anterior to the Broca’s area

Mixed transcortical aphasia

A rare variety of nonfluent aphasia caused by multiple embolic strokes, resulting in lesions in the watershed area or the arterial border zone of the brain

Global aphasia

The most severe form of nonfluent aphasia caused by extensive lesions, affecting all language areas of the brain

Fluent aphasia

Relatively intact fluency, but generally less meaningful or even meaningless speech

Anosognosia

Reduced awareness of deficits

Conduction aphasia

A rare and controversial variety of fluent aphasia caused by lesions in the region between the Broca’s area and wernickes area (arcuate fasciculus)

Anomic aphasia

Caused by lesions in different regions of the brain, including the angular, gyrus the second temporal gyrus, and the juncture of the temporal parietal lobes

Crossed aphasia

Aphasia that occurs due to a right hemisphere brain lesion in right handed individuals

Prompting aphasics communicative effectiveness

This program helps to teach conversational exchanges between two persons with an emphasis on effective communication not necessarily grammaticality

Helm elicited language program for syntax stimulation

The clinician tells a short story and asks questions about it; the clinician may tell an incomplete story and request story completion; what who when and where questions declarative comparatives and yes, no questions may be taught

Response elaboration training

This method helps teach the production of expanded sentences that contain progressively increased amount of information

Alexia

Loss of previously acquired reading skills due to recent brain damage

Dyslexia

Children’s difficulty learning to read

Pure Alexia

A reading problem when writing and other language skills are intact

Agraphia

The loss or impairment of normally acquired writing skills due to lesions in the foot of the medial frontal gyrus of the brain

Agnosia

Impaired understanding of the meaning of certain stimuli without peripheral sensory impairment

Auditory agnosia

Impaired understanding of the meaning of auditory stimuli, normal peripheral hearing difficulty in matching objects with their sound and normal visual recognition of objects

Auditory verbal agnosia

Impaired understanding of spoken words, normal peripheral hearing normal recognition of nonverbal sounds normal recognition of printed words and normal or near normal verbal expression and reading

Visual agnosia

Impaired visual recognition of objects

Tactile agnosia

Impaired naming and description of objects, clients can feel in their hands

Dementia

Persistent and progressive, deterioration in intellectual activities, emotions, communication, skills, and general behaviors

Right hemisphere disorder

impairments and cognition, communication and general behavior that are a consequence of lesions in the right hemisphere of the brain

Left neglect

Reduced awareness of the left side of the body and generally reduced awareness of stimuli in the left visual field

Confabulation

Exaggerated claims regarding a disabled body part

prosopagnosia

Facial recognition deficits

Open head brain injury

A fractured or perforated skull, torn or lacerated meninges, and an injury that extends to brain tissue

Closed head brain injury

No open wound in the head, no penetration of a foreign substance to the brain, a damaged brain within the skull

Acceleration deceleration injuries

Head is set into motion by physical force, when the head begins to move the brain inside is still static then moves and when the head stops moving the brain continues to move inside the skull

Nonacceleration injury

When a restrained head is hit by a moving object

Blast injury

Cause both closed head and open head injury

Concussion

Closed head injury in which consciousness is lost for less than 20 minutes