ABSTRACT
Results are reported from an international project the aim of which has been to develop and validate a wide-ranging questionnaire suitable for administration to brain-injured patients and their relatives. A self-report questionnaire concerning subjective experience of cognitive, emotional and social difficulties (The European Brain Injury Questionnaire, EBIQ) was administered to a group of 905 brain-injured patients, and close relatives to these competed a parallel version of the questionnaire concerning the brain-injured person. The sample was drawn from seven European countries together with Brazil. The same questionnaire was also administered to a group of 203-non-brain-injured controls, similarly in self-report and relative-report versions. Scales relating to eight specific areas of functioning, together with a global scale, are derived from the questionnaire and their internal reliability was estimated in the present data. Analyses of the 63 items of the questionnaire showed consistently greater levels of problems for the brain-injured group, especially as indicated by relatives. This pattern was substantially replicated among the nine scales. The scales discriminated well between stroke patients and those who had suffered a traumatic brain injury. There was also a tendency for reported problems to be greater for patients who were surveyed later post-injury (> or = 19 months) rather than earlier. Comparison of sets of controls derived from two countries (France and Brazil) showed small but important differences. It is concluded that the questionnaire has an acceptable reliability and validity, but that it will be necessary to obtain culturally relevant non-brain-injured control data when employing it in different countries.
Subject(s)
Brain Injuries , Surveys and Questionnaires , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Brain Injuries/physiopathology , Brain Injuries/psychology , Brazil , Europe , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Self-AssessmentABSTRACT
This paper provides an overview of the computerized assessment and rehabilitation of patients with cognitive disorders caused by focal brain damage. The characteristics of computer-based rehabilitation systems are discussed in general and questions as to their efficacy addressed. Diagnostic but in particular rehabilitation systems for the following areas are examined more closely: attention disorders, visual-perceptual disorders, memory and language disorders. The development of hard and software is followed back to its beginnings. Typical examples of modern systems are given. The focus is on systems evaluated in the course of a European Concerted Research Action.Supported by the European Commission, Project No. MR4*-0231-D).
ABSTRACT
Broca's aphasia is characterized by disorders on the phonemic, syntactic and lexical level of linguistic description. It is not only the patient's speech which is impaired; abilities to comprehend, read and write are likewise impaired. Articulatory disorders (dysarthria) which are due to an impaired innervation of the phonatory and articulatory musculature may exist. However these disorders do not account for all the linguistic deficits found in cases of Broca's aphasia. The characteristic feature enabling a differential diagnosis of Broca's aphasia is agrammatism.
Subject(s)
Aphasia/physiopathology , Brain Damage, Chronic/physiopathology , Adult , Dyslexia/etiology , Female , Frontal Lobe , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Speech , Syndrome , WritingSubject(s)
Aphasia/therapy , Adult , Aged , Aphasia/classification , Humans , Middle Aged , Nonverbal Communication , Prognosis , Speech Therapy , Syndrome , Time FactorsABSTRACT
Global aphasia is described as a unitary syndrome which is characterized by a severe impairment of all linguistic capabilities. Speech production is extremely limited and consists of stereotyped phrases, recurring utterances or a few isolated words which are usually neologistically distorted. The patients are unable to express their thoughts in a situationally adequate manner. Language comprehension is restricted to simple questions and commands. A clinical description of the syndrome is given and the neurolinguistic structure of the disorders is discussed.
Subject(s)
Aphasia/physiopathology , Language , Aphasia/rehabilitation , Cognition , HumansSubject(s)
Color Perception/physiology , Dyslexia, Acquired/physiopathology , Gyrus Cinguli/physiopathology , Aged , Auditory Perception/physiology , Form Perception/physiology , Handwriting , Humans , Information Theory , Male , Memory/physiology , Occipital Lobe/physiology , Proprioception , Reading , Remedial Teaching , Space Perception/physiology , Touch/physiology , Verbal Behavior , Visual Cortex/physiology , Wechsler ScalesABSTRACT
Despite the variability of its behavioral manifestations Wernicke's aphasia is considered to be a unitary syndrome. According to the criteria of intelligibility, phonemic and semantic paraphasias in spontaneous speech, 4 forms of Wernicke's aphasia are differentiated: 1) with predominantly semantic paraphasias, 2) with semantic jargon, 3) with predominantly phonemic paraphasias and 4) with phonemic jargon. A severe deficit in language understanding is common to all 4 forms. In addition to phonemic and semantic paraphasias paragrammatism is an outstanding feature of the language production in Wernicke's aphasia. After a survey of views about the localization of the lesion and of earlier descriptive models a neurolinguistic explantation of the characteristic symptoms of Wernicke's aphasia is suggested.
Subject(s)
Aphasia , Auditory Perception , Aphasia/diagnosis , Aphasia/physiopathology , Cerebrovascular Circulation , Humans , Psycholinguistics , Syndrome , Temporal Lobe/physiopathology , Verbal BehaviorABSTRACT
We have examined the severity and quality of aphasic misnaming in colour naming tasks as compared to errors of patients with right-sided brain damage and to patients with posterior disconnexion syndrome. The investigation is based on 80 aphasic patients, 20 patients with right-sided brain damage and 80 normal control subjects. Differences in the performance for colour and object naming are discussed. The main results were: 1. The subtypes of aphasia did not differ quantitatively in both types of performance. All aphasics made significantly more errors on colour naming than on object naming tasks. This difference, however, was numerically too small to have practical value. 2. Unlike in the corresponding understanding tasks, both types of naming tasks differentiated between aphasic and non-aphasic patients, the aphasic group performing poorer. 3. The four subtypes of aphasia had similar error scores in the 10 colour tasks. We observed certain regularities in the type of paraphasic misnaming for the total group of aphasics. The subgroup of amnesic aphasia was characterized by a strategy of modifying the colour terms similar to the description of use encountered in the language behavior of these patients. 4. Patients with posterior disconnexion syndrome in general make 7 errors out of 10 tasks in colour naming, in contrast to 2 errors out of 10 tasks in object naming. For aphasic patients the relation is 3.5 to 2.5 errors.
Subject(s)
Aphasia/physiopathology , Brain Damage, Chronic/physiopathology , Color Perception , Perceptual Disorders/physiopathology , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Color Perception Tests , Corpus Callosum , Frontal Lobe/physiopathology , Humans , Middle Aged , Psychological Tests , Syndrome , Verbal Behavior , Visual Perception , Wernicke Encephalopathy/physiopathologyABSTRACT
The investigation of language comprehension in aphasics has usually been concerned only with the word and sentence levels. It has not been considered that language in the normal communicative situation has the character of discourse. Furthermore, language understanding should be conceived of as comprising different processes of comprehension which can be selectively affected in aphasia. It was therefore necessary to compose a test for text comprehension. In this test the patient is read a short text and then required to choose that picture from a multiple-choice set which is most appropriate to the story. Texts and pictures were developed according to the linguistic parameters: agent/experiencer, action, situation, metaphorical comment. With the tasks kept uniform this test allows not only quantitative but also qualitative statistical evaluation. Preliminary results show that the test reveals qualitative differences between subtypes of aphasia.
