Question

What questions would you ask a patient with aphasia to identify whether he is suffering from fluent or non-fluent aphasia?

Answer 1

Aphasia-

Fluent aphasia - also called wernicke's sensory speech aphasia.

Non-fluent aphasia - also called broca's motor speech aphasia.

Fluent aphasia occurs due to damage of wernicke's sensory speech area which is present in temporal gyrus of temporal lobe.

Wernicke's area is concerned with interpretation of language through visual and auditory input.

So, in fluent aphasia, the patient do not understand the language/words.Then, the patient can produce a fluent speech (as broca's area is unaffected) but he is unaware of the meaning of the words he uses consequently and he uses incorrect words. He is unaware of his mistakes. To the others his speech sounds like an incomprehensive foreign language.

Non-fluent aphasia occurs due to damage of broca's motor speech area which is present in frontal gyrus of frontal lobe.

Broca's area concerned with production of expressive speech.

In non-fluent aphasia, he understood the language/words (as wernicke's area is unaffected) but he cannot be expressed it in speech.He have difficulty to produce the sentences and speech is limited.

Questions to be asked for to differntiate fluent or non-fluent aphasia -

When we ask the patient-

What is your name?

What is your age?

Where are you?

What is your hobbies?

Fluent aphasia patient says - I had my lunch. I am a god. I want chocolates. I like my parents.

The patient talks unnecessary words which is not related to questions what we asked.

Non-fluent aphasia patient says - Mmmm--myyyyy-mmyyy nnnnaaa--nnaaammm--nnammmeee ii--isss rrrrooo---rooohhaa----rooohhhann. Myyyyy-mmyyy aaagg---aaagggeee issss--tttthhiii---thiiirrrttyyy. Iiii aaamm iii---innn---hoooss---hospii---tttalll. Mmm--yyy hhhoo----bbb--yyyy ii--iss - - liiissss - - tteen---nniii--innggg-- mmmuu-- ssssii--ssiicc.

The patient can understand the language/words. But he cannot be able to express it clearly. He can utter small words and he takes time to complete the sentence.