Wernicke's Aphasia

A bit about the history of Wernicke’s Aphasia: In 1874, Carl Wernicke, a junior assistant in a German hospital, discovered that damage in part of the left temporal cortex produced certain kind of language impairment. Damage in Wernicke's area produces this disorder.  He called this disorder sensory aphasia, which became known as Wernicke's aphasia.

                                               

 Damage in Wernicke’s area produces Wernicke’s aphasia, also known as fluent aphasia. A patient with Wernicke’s Aphasia does not appear to have any difficulty articulating speech, but may be paraphasic. However, comprehension of speech is impaired and sometimes as much as single words are not comprehended.

People with Wernicke’s Aphasia speak fluently but have much trouble finding the names of objects and a lot of times they make up names. When having found the words, they say them in an order which isn’t understandable. Their writing ability can also be illegible. In some cases, people with this disorder don’t understand the spoken language.

This is a video of someone showing symptoms of Wernicke's Aphasia.

 

We can imagine how extremely difficult and frustrating it must be for these people to live this way. They can speak fluently, yet anything they say makes no sense. Also, hearing someone talk to them but not being able to comprehend what they are saying. It is almost as if these people don’t have the ability to talk.

For this disorder, there are no surgical or medical procedures to treat it. The only treatment available for patients with this disorder is speech and language therapy. Some patients happen to recover completely without any forms of treatment.