About Stroke and Aphasia
Aphasia is a language disorder that affects the ability to communicate. It's most often caused by a stroke that affects the left part of the brain, which controls the speech and language center of the brain.
Aphasia does not affect intelligence.
Stroke survivors remain mentally alert, even though their speech may be jumbled, fragmented or impossible to understand. Some survivors continue to have:
* Trouble speaking, like "getting the words out"
* Trouble finding words
* Problems understanding what others say
* Problems with reading, writing or mathematics
* Inability to process long words and infrequently used words
People with aphasia are often frustrated and confused because they can't speak as well or understand things the way they did before their stroke. They may act differently because of changes in their brain. Imagine looking at the headlines of the morning newspaper and not being able to recognize the words or trying to say "put the car in the garage" and it comes out "put the train in the house" or "widdle tee car ung sender plissen." Thousands of alert, intelligent men and women are suddenly plunged into a world of jumbled communication because of aphasia.