Aphasia is an impairment of language, affecting the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write.
It is always due to injury to the brain, most commonly from a stroke, particularly in older individuals, but also from head trauma, brain tumors, or infections.
Aphasia can be so severe as to make communication with the patient almost impossible, or it can be very mild.
It may affect mainly a single aspect of language use, such as the ability to retrieve the names of objects, or the ability to put words together into sentences, or the ability to read. More commonly, however, multiple aspects of communication are impaired, while some channels remain accessible for a limited exchange of information.
There are different types of aphasia, such as Global, Broca’s, Wernicke’s, Primary Progressive, Anomic, and Mixed Non-fluent aphasia.
See reference for details.
Adapted from National Aphasia Association. Aphasia definitions. Internet. Accessed on May 24, 2016.