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Turkish Journal of Medical Sciences

DOI

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Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study was to define aphasia frequency and its clinical types together with the relationship between the clinical types and age, gender, hemiplegic side, etiology and educational level of the hemiplegic patients. Methods: All hemiplegic patients who admitted to Ankara Physical Therapy Training and Research Hospital (APTTRH) from January 2002 to January 2003 were included in this study. During this period, 478 hemiplegic patients were hospitalized for rehabilitation. One hundred and five of these patients were identified to have speech disorders; seven patients were excluded from the study. The Mann-Whitney U test and Pearson chi-square test were used to investigate gender differences and predictive association among the variables of age, gender, educational levels and type of aphasia. Results: Mean age of aphasic patients was calculated as 56.1 (21-79) years. Of 98 aphasic patients, 73 (74.4%) were non-fluent, and 25 (25.6%) were fluent. There was no statistically significant difference between the mean ages of fluent and non-fluent aphasics (P > 0.05). Mean age of Broca aphasics (48.7) was younger than of Wernicke (56.3) and global (62.1) aphasics, and this difference was of statistical significance (P < 0.01). There was no significant relationship between gender and etiology, dominant hand, hemiplegic side, educational level and types of aphasia (P > 0.05). Conclusions: Aphasia is one of the most common complications to develop due to cerebrovascular accident (CVA). Accordingly, further research is in progress to examine the relation between age, gender and etiology and to probe its causes, using a criterion other than the presence of aphasia.

Keywords

Aphasia, hemiplegia, age, gender, type of aphasia

First Page

295

Last Page

300

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