ADHD drug may help individuals with aphasia regain language abilities

Washington, Feb 18 (ANI): A medication commonly prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can also treat aphasia – a condition where a person loses his ability to recall and produce common words.

Aphasia is caused by lesions to the language centers of the brain. These lesions are often due to stroke or brain injury, but can also be the result of a brain tumour or progressive disease such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.

Types of aphasia can range from a patient having difficulty finding and producing a word to a patient having no ability at all to speak or understand language.

While most aphasia patients benefit from behavioral therapy to regain their language skills, a new area of treatment is opening up which looks at certain drugs to help augment the therapy.

“The standard of care for patients with aphasia has always been and will always be speech/language therapy, but a new area is opening up that looks at what drugs can be used in combination with therapy to enhance recovery from brain damage and help the brain repair itself,” said Gerry Stefanatos, D.Phil., an associate professor of communication sciences and disorders in the College of Health Professions. Next.....

Epilepsy may affect language development

Epileptic activity in the brain may affect the development of language in children, the results of a new study indicate.

Anyone can have a seizure if the brain is exposed to a strong enough stimulus. One in every 20 people will have a single seizure at some time during their lives. However, people with epilepsy have recurring seizures. This is caused by abnormal electrical impulses in the brain. Up to 40,000 people in Ireland are estimated to have epilepsy.

Swedish researchers divided 60 children of different ages into three groups. The first comprised of children with language dysfunction, such as slow speech development or inadequate language comprehension. Next...

Lost Luggage: ‘The Package’ aphasia

JD: I think I would be ok with the aphasia thing if it does turn out to be a punishment by Smokey. Especially after his conversation with Crazy Claire, I could totally buy that. Speaking of that, I think Smokey completely burned the sympathy card in that one conversation. There was at least the kernel of doubt about him being evil before, but, yeah, he’s a bad guy through and through.Next...