Aphasia

Wernicke's Aphasia

 

 

Wernicke’s aphasia happens because the posterior portion of the left side of the brain has been damaged. Damage from a stroke or brain injury is sometimes classified as “anterior” versus “posterior”. Posterior in this sense means slightly above and behind the ear. This area of the brain is “responsible” for reading, thinking of what to write, and understanding information. There is an area of the temporal lobe on the left side of the brain called Wernicke’s area.

The hallmarks of a Wernicke’s aphasia are poor auditory processing, fluent speech, and poor repetition.

Poor auditory processing means that the person with this type of aphasia may have difficulty understanding what you are saying to him. While s/he may nod or act as though s/he understands, what s/he is hearing is often not what you are saying. Fluent speech means that s/he is speaking in extended sentences, although the content of those sentences may be full of neologisms and paraphasias. A neologism is a made up word, such as when I say “skucker” when I mean to say “cook”. A paraphasia can be when I mean to say “cook”, but instead I say “sook”, or “look”. Poor repetition means that they can’t repeat what they’ve said or what you’ve said.

While Wernicke's aphasia has severe cognitive impacts, there are typically no apparent impairments in motor function meaning pateints have no difficulty in physical movements. The most common cause of Wernicke's aphasia is stroke and due to this there is a prevalence of Wernicke's aphasia in those most susceptible to strokes, but is not limited to this general disease. Because the patient typically experiences some form of trauma to the brain (via stroke or injury) aphasia is often confused for what is known as apraxia. Apraxia is similar in that the patient has had some form of damage to the brain, but it is done in the motor complex and does not effect the cognitive aspect - but displays difficulty speaking due to muscle impairments in the lips and tongue. Making this distinction is crucial when treatment comes into play, as there are different methods for the different injuries.
Treatment for Wernicke's aphasia is often done through speech therapy; teaching sound production, rhythm or rate, and even using alternative methods of communication, such as writing with pencil and paper. The concept of this treatment is to help the brain recover from the damage as much as possible, exercising the area's language functions.