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Neuropsicologia Latinoamericana

On-line version ISSN 2075-9479

Abstract

GARCIA, Emelia Lázaro; ROJAS, Luis Quintanar  and  SOLOVIEVA, Yulia. Neuropsychological assessment of patients with different types of aphasia. Neuropsicologia Latinoamericana [online]. 2010, vol.2, n.1, pp. 33-46. ISSN 2075-9479.

Assessment of Spanish-speaking patients with aphasia, frequently, is accomplished with the help of translated or adapted tests. Many of such tests do not consider specific features of Spanish language. By this reason, we consider that it is urgent to develop proper assessment instruments directed to each population. New proposals of instruments for assessment should not only provide analyses of verbal disturbances, but also permit to identify brain neuropsychological mechanisms of each clinic case. The objective of the present work is to stress the relevance of combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses during neuropsychological clinical assessment. The proposal presents "Neuropsychological clinical assessment of aphasia Puebla-Sevilla" which is directed to characterization of clinic cases of different types of aphasia, according to Luria's (1978) classification. This instrument was created especially for Spanish speaking population and based on Luria's neuropsychological school methodology. The study includes 10 cases of patients with language disturbances as a consequence of brain damage. The results are presented in quantitative and qualitative way. Neuropsychological mechanisms (factors) are identified for each case: motor sequential organization (3 patients with motor efferent aphasia); kinestesic integration (3 patients with motor afferent aphasia); phonematic integration (2 patients with sensory aphasia) and audioverbal retention (2 patients with acoustic-mnesic aphasia). The results are discussed according to each clinical picture of identified types of aphasia. The possibility of interpretation of patient's errors in relations to each other and to their origins is stressed. We conclude that our instrument of assessment could be useful for identification of common neuropsychological factor which take part in different disturbed functions and actions. Such identification is relevant for organization of methods for rehabilitation not only of language, but also of the patient's activity in general.

Keywords : Aphasia; Aphasia assessment; Diagnostic of aphasia; Neuropsychological assessment; Brain injury.

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