A Prospective Study of Aphasia In Head Injury

Suresh Babu Thangavelu; T.Suresh Babu

Volume : VII, Issue : VI, June - 2017

A Prospective Study of Aphasia In Head Injury

Suresh Babu Thangavelu, T. Suresh Babu

Abstract :

Introduction Aphasia in head injury is a well known entity, even then there are only few reports available in the literature. It is an acquired lesion of the dominant cereal hemisphere, due to the impairment of comprehension or production of language in written or spoken forms. Aphasia is considered an important consequence of head injury as it compromises interaction between the patient and others. Aphasia in head injury consists of a large spectrum of communication deficits. It is not known for certain why trauma in the same area of the head produces an anomic aphasia in some patients, Wernicke‘s aphasia in others, and in some it produces no aphasia. In the recent 10 years with the development of modern neuroimaging and cognitive neurosciences, clinical aphasia research concerned with cereal dominance, the influence of handedness, and the mechanisms of recovery have been re–explored. Hence an attempt is made in this study, to study types of aphasia, its clinical presentation and outcome in post traumatic patients. Materials and methods All head injury patients who stabilized within 24 hours and admitted in Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, between august 2010 and March 2013, were screened for aphasia. Patients who strictly completed the bedside screening test and found to have aphasia were included in this study. Based upon the above exclusion criteria, after exclusion 3015 patients were completed Frank Benson and Norman Geschwind Bedside Language screening test. 67 patients were found to have aphasia their details were entered into the proforma and master chart was prepared and analysed. . Clinical examination including CT scan ain plain findings at that time of admission were included.Screened patients were further evaluated with Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) scoring. After applying WAB scoring aphasia patients were classified in to eight different subtypes of aphasia. During follow up, patients were revaluated by WAB test and those who scored AQ more than 93.8 were declared to have recovered from aphasia. Based on the above data a master chart was prepared and the same analyzed using SPSS software. For the statistical analysis chi–square ,pearson formula was used. Results– In this study on post traumatic aphasia leads to the following conclusions. The incidence of aphasia in mild head injury patients was 2.22% most commonly in the third decade of life with males more commonly affected and anomic aphasia was the most common with recovery being more commonly seen.