Aphasia

Aphasia refers to impairment of verbal communication ability caused by lesions in the language functional areas of the cerebral cortex while the patient is conscious, with normal awareness, and without disorders of phonation or articulation. It manifests as deficits or loss of six basic aspects: spontaneous speech, comprehension, repetition, naming, reading, and writing. For example, the patient may have normal articulation but expressive impairment, normal limb motor function but writing impairment, normal vision but reading impairment, and normal hearing but impaired speech comprehension. Different language functional areas of the brain may be damaged with different clinical manifestations.