Do you know what aphasia is?
I had known for two and a half years that I had a stroke with language problems. Healthline provided some history about stroke on their website: “apoplexy”, the original Greek name for a stroke which meant “struck down by violence”, was found 2,400 years ago by Hippocrates. Not until the mid-1600s was it really looked into: Jacob Wepfer had discovered the bleeding in the brain, and found that blockage in the brain could cause apoplexy. The name wasn’t changed to stroke until 1928, but even today it still deserves much scientific research.
After my stroke – when I had finally found out about
it - I was told I was suffering from aphasia. Over the last two years I had
looked up website information, and I thought I knew a little about it. It took
me two and a half years to look up any
talk about deficit within aphasia, and I found it mentioned in Wikiversity and Wikipaedia:
this time telling me about the anomia aphasia.
The word “aphasia” had come from the Greek word “aphatos”, meaning speechless, and according to the
Wikiversity there are seven types of aphasia. They mention anomia aphasia. Over
to Wikipaedia, and I found that the definition of anomia aphasia is: “… a
deficit of expressive language. The most pervasive deficit in the aphasias is
anomia. Some level of anomia is seen in all of the aphasias.”
There are three types of anomia:
“Word selection”,
in which the sufferer (patient) can identify an object but can’t name it;
“Semantic anomia”,
which causes sufferers to “lose” words for objects; and
“Disconnection
anomia”, which identifies loss of connection between sensory and language cortices.
I can count myself in word selection anomia. My
conversation will seem to progress easily, but far too often I forget a word –
usually a noun or a verb. I’ve lost my fluency, and sometimes I feel extremely irked.
I have seen people, with aphasia like me, who lose their words and then
eventually just stop talking. More than two years ago that was me, too. I could
listen to anyone talking and I understood what they were saying, but if I tried
to respond I couldn’t find my own language.
More than a year in speech pathology after my stroke
didn’t really fix me. Aphasia had been an innate inheritance from stroke but,
even though aphasia had been mentioned to me, I didn’t even know anything real about
it until I went out to an aphasia group coffee morning at North Lake. I met
quite a few people whose language was very similar to mine, but some, with
carers, did nothing more than smile and nod. I believed they understood what was said, it was related
to how they responded.
Throughout the months at the aphasia group coffees I
wore a name badge, which I had printed with the logo of Australian Aphasia
Association. One of the members, Paul, whose wife after her stroke has aphasia,
handed out aphasia badges, and I still wear it often. Very recently I have
thought I need to be more involved with AAA. I need to talk to people about what
aphasia has done to me.
Next week,
12-18 September, is the National Stroke Week. AAA posted an event on their
Facebook page, advertising Wednesday 14th as Wednesday Without Words.
They said “Wednesday Without Words is our
National Aphasia Day which occurs every year in the middle of National Stroke
Week. On Wednesday Without Words, you are challenged to raise awareness for
aphasia, a loss of language commonly as a result of stroke.” They made a few
suggestions, and this one got to me: “… even try and go for a whole day without
words (as the name suggests) and walk in the shoes of some people with aphasia.”
That will be very interesting for me – every Wednesday
I have a social morning tea in the village and then a two-hour trivia in Logan
(I allow myself a feeling of being able to move around: it’s good for me). Some
weeks I can feel lost, and don’t say anything throughout the trivia game. Other
weeks I can chat, and offer my suggested answers to questions. So next week I can’t talk when I am there on Wednesday
Without Words. Perhaps I need to design a handout which can tell people what
aphasia is! I’m pretty sure that very
– v-e-r-y – few people know about aphasia or even understand it, especially
since it’s living inside of me.
Before Wednesday Without Words, find out what you need
to know about aphasia. And, one day, talk
to me – I’ll talk back!
Hi Louisa, your blog post is great! I am a volunteer with Australian Aphasia Association and I was wondering if I could share your post on our Facebook page? Thanks so much, Anne
ReplyDeleteYes, of course you can share it... anything on here... and I'm very sorry I missed you until today!
ReplyDelete