49 Expressive dysphasia
Salient features
Examination
• Assess the patient’s ability to find appropriate words, whether comprehension is intact (e.g. asking the patient to name geometric shapes, parts of the body, or components of common objects such as a pen).
• Repetition may or may not be intact.
• Proceed by telling the examiner that you would like to carry out a neurological examination of the patient for a right-sided stroke.
Remember: The neurologic basis of language is controlled by a network of neocortical areas centered in the perisylvian regions of the left hemisphere of the brain. This language network is almost always located in the left hemisphere of the brain and includes the perisylvian portions of the inferior frontal and temporoparietal regions, known as Broca’s and Wernicke’s (p. 205) areas, respectively, as well as surrounding regions of the frontal, parietal and temporal cortex. The term dysphasia denotes a disorder in language processing caused by damage to this network.
Diagnosis
This patient has expressive dysphasia (lesion) caused by a right-sided stroke (aetiology).
