
Aphasia robs people of their language skills while leaving their minds intact - sergeant3
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/lost-for-words/476208/?single_page=true
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madaxe_again
Not just language - object recognition too - visual aphasia is a thing too.

 _The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat_ by Oliver Sacks is a great book on
the topic.

Anecdotally, I've had it (visual aphasia), in a severely dehydrated state
(vomiting for a week in 40 degree heat is no joke), I couldn't identify
objects (taps = cat) and things were hard to identify as coherent wholes, more
a bunch of strange parts, and was hallucinating badly to boot. Couldn't even
begin to put words together so can't comment on verbal. Horrible experience
but even at the time some part of me that was clinging to sanity was going
"hmm, interesting".

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yxlx
>Horrible experience but even at the time some part of me that was clinging to
sanity was going "hmm, interesting".

That must've been a strange feeling.

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madaxe_again
It's a familiar one for me. I've shot myself, put an axe through my hand, been
stabbed, and have had all manner of painful and unpleasant experiences - and I
guess part of the coping mechanism I've had since before I recall is to take a
clinical detachment and observe myself as a subject.

Then again when I was nine my mother caught me sticking knitting needles in my
eye, trying to replicate newton's experiments, so.

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MrAnalogy
What it feels like to suddenly lose language

Brain Scientist Describes her stroke, with humor and insight.

This is one of the best rated TED talks. I hear she spent 6 months practicing.
And it shows.

Link to curated version (skips the boring part :)

[http://www.bungalowsoftware.com/stroke/how-a-stroke-
feels.ht...](http://www.bungalowsoftware.com/stroke/how-a-stroke-feels.htm)

~~~
TimPrice
IMO there is no boring part in the video, introductions serve purpose.

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outworlder
So one of the patients managed to write a paper about her experience. Four
pages, took months to write. That is a huge achievement...

... and yet it is behind a paywall. I'd be fine with it if I knew that, by
paying, I would support her. But I'm guessing this is not the case.

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MrAnalogy
I've been working with people for 20 years (I make aphasia therapy software)
and it's amazing how little the average person appreciates their language.

I like to say : Aphasia is the deficit that has everyone not talking.

When we try to relearn language as an adult we find out just how complicated
speech & language are.

But, boy, when it's gone you realize how valuable it is.

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dmd
My brief experience with aphasia: [http://dmd.3e.org/2005/11/aphasia-and-back-
sunday-20-novembe...](http://dmd.3e.org/2005/11/aphasia-and-back-
sunday-20-november-2005/)

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ethanbond
A family friend has some sort of aphasia that is affecting his language first,
but will end up taking his life. He's taking death head on and sharing a
really remarkable story about how to die "green."

Kind of tangentially related, but an interesting adventure into things I've
never really spent time to think about.
[https://vimeo.com/145882693](https://vimeo.com/145882693)

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thaumasiotes
> some sort of aphasia that is affecting his language first, but will end up
> taking his life

Aphasia (ancient greek for "without speech") is just a condition of impairment
in language production. By definition, it can't directly harm you, or do
anything other than "affect your language".

It is caused by brain injuries; they can hurt you.

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joeyo
As you note, aphasia is a symptom. As such it can have multiple causes. Some
varieties of aphasia are caused by a degenerative disease, not injury, for
example Primary Progressive Aphasia [1].

Stroke is a very common cause of aphasia, of course, but as our populations
age (and as the causes of death and disaility that strike earlier are
eliminated), the many varieties of age related dementia are making themselves
known.

1\. [http://www.aphasia.org/aphasia-resources/primary-
progressive...](http://www.aphasia.org/aphasia-resources/primary-progressive-
aphasia/)

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awinter-py
The three types (agrammatic logopenic semantic) are so interesting. Presumably
the emergence of behavior from histology is what's going on here -- I hope
there is more research into this as biotech gets better, both so we can cure
this and to understand the genetic encoding of behavior.

Also really sad. Anyone who's had a degenerative disease in their family knows
how hard this can be.

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paulcole
I've got a chronic health condition (being intentionally vague) and have
thought a lot about what symptoms/outcomes would make me seriously consider
ending my life. This is definitely on the list. Sounds miserable.

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codeisawesome
So there's _no_ way to communicate after being affected by this? Why is the
world such a place of horror!

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MrAnalogy
There isn't necessarily _no way_ to communicate. It's normally just language
(or symbolic) communication.

So, you could communicate with hand gestures, pictures, etc.

One technique is a communication board, with lots of pictures. The person with
aphasia would point to the picture of concept they want to communicate.

And there are augmentative communication devices, but they are ( in my
experience) not terribly useful for an adult w/ aphasia.

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codeisawesome
Okay. That helps, ever so slightly.

