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Aphasia

Aphasia is a loss or impairment of the ability to produce or comprehend
language, due to brain damage. It is usually a result of damage to the
language centres of the brain and can be caused by a stroke or physical
injury. Depending on the area and extent of the damage, someone may be able
to speak but not write, or vice versa, or understand more complex sentences
than they can produce. The brains of young children with brain damage
sometimes restructure themselves to use different areas for speech
processing, and regain lost function; adult brains are less plastic and lack
this ability.

Any of the following can be considered aphasia:

   * inability to comprehend speech
   * inability to read (alexia)
   * inability to write (agraphia)
   * inability to speak, without muscleparalysis
   * inability to form words
   * inability to name objects (anomia)
   * poor enunciation
   * inappropriate speech, use of jargon or wrong words
   * inability to repeat a phrase
   * persistent repetition of phrases
   * other language impairment

The common types of aphasia are

   * Broca's aphasia (expressive aphasia)
   * Wernicke's aphasia (receptive aphasia)
   * Nominal aphasia (anomic aphasia)
   * Global aphasia
   * Conduction aphasia

A few less common varieties include

   * Transcortical motor aphasia
   * Subcortical motor aphasia
   * Transcortical sensory Aphasia
   * Subcortical sensory aphasia

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