What is aphasia?
apha•sia | uh-fey-zhuh
Aphasia is an acquired language disorder. It is often caused by a stroke or brain injury. It affects a person’s ability to process, use, and/or understand language. Aphasia does not affect intelligence.
What does aphasia affect?
Aphasia can affect all forms of language, including speaking, listening, reading, writing, and numbers/math. Having aphasia can make it hard for someone to communicate or understand others.
What causes aphasia?
Aphasia is caused by damage to the language centers of the brain. These are usually on the left side of the head (in the left hemisphere). There are many different events or conditions that can cause aphasia.
Most people with aphasia have had a stroke or a brain injury. But you can also have aphasia after surgery, due to a brain tumor, or due to an infection. Other people have aphasia due to progressive conditions, such as dementia, or other reasons.
Are there different types of aphasia?
There are many types of aphasia. What aphasia looks like for you will depend on where in your brain you have damage, as well as how much damage there is. The more severe the aphasia, the more limited your speech and language skills.
What can I do about aphasia?
Getting an aphasia diagnosis is unplanned, unexpected, and frustrating, but it is not hopeless. There are many resources, support groups, and educational tools available for people with aphasia and their care partners.
