Aphasia has been brought to the attention of the public due to the news that Bruce Willis has retired from acting.
Here is what you should know.
Aphasia is a problem with language that someone wasn't born with, according to Hugo Botha, a neurologist.
The most common cause of stroke is head injury, which can affect the production and comprehension of both speech and written words, but experts stress that it does not impact intelligence.
According to the National Aphasia Association, it affects 2 million Americans, making it more common than Parkinson's Disease, cerebral palsy, or muscular dystrophy.
A survey in 2016 found that less than 9 percent of people knew what it was.
It is usually caused by a single event such as a stroke, but there are other possibilities.
Therapy focuses on preventing further loss of function when the damage is progressive.
The cause of his diagnosis was not shared by his family.
The brain system governing language is very complex and involves selecting the right words, moving the mouth to vocalize them, and on the other end hearing and decoding their meaning, said Rapp.
Everyone occasionally struggles to find the right word, but you could imagine in aphasia, this happens a lot.
Aphasia can be linked to where in the brain injury occurred.
Brooke Hatfield, of the American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA), said that people who have been through express aphasia usually understand fairly well but have trouble getting words out.
A person with this type of aphasia can use simple sentences.
The words come easily in receptive aphasia, but they might not be the right words. Hatfield said it was difficult for that person to understand what they were hearing.
Hatfield says that everyone has a chance to get better over the long term.
There are people who had a stroke 30 years ago who still work at their language and communication.
The brain is plastic and speech therapy can engage other parts of it to pass the roadblock of the damaged areas.
If people are stuck on a specific word, therapy will help them talk around it.
It is possible for family members to develop strategies to make themselves better understood, such as shorter sentences, and making sure that you are talking to the person in full view instead of the other room.
Some people do well with devices that make it easier to write.
Rapp said that there are experimental treatments that combine electrical stimulation of the brain with speech therapy that have shown promise in recovering function.
The experts emphasized patience. Rapp said that aphasia can be frustrating and isolating because our relationships with others depend so much on being able to talk to them and communicate with them.
Hatfield said it was similar to waking up in a country where you don't speak the language.
Agence France-Presse
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