Assessment of aphasia by the Family Doctor

Abstract

Language is a complex process, which depends on multiple structures of brains left hemisphere, the dominant one for language in the right-handed and in the majority of the left-handed individuals. Aphasia is a disturbance of language resulting from a brain injury that compromise several aspects of communication, including oral expression, understanding of language, reading and writing. The type of aphasia depends on the location of the injury in the brain. Aphasia is a frequent sequel from stroke, head trauma and, in less common cases, brain tumours and infections. The authors describe a standard method for the evaluation of language that can be used at the bedside or in the family doctors consultation. This evaluation consists of four cardinal tests that allow diagnosing the type of aphasia: fluency, nomination, repetition and understanding of simple orders. Beyond these, other reading and writing tests allow a better characterization of the found disturbances.