Sunday, January 25, 2009

Tono tono

Tono tono is a video about Broca's aphasia patient. Broca's aphasia is caused by damage (like stroke or trauma) to or developmental issues in anterior regions of the brain around the third convolution of the left frontal lobe.  

Broca's aphasics have good comprehension but difficulty saying what they want to say.  Speech is slow, labored, and telegraphic, prepositions and conjunctions are lost, and words are slurred.  Broca's aphasia is usually accompanied by agraphia (the inability to express thoughts in writing.) They are usually aware of being unable to speak. :(

This patient is limited to a combination of the word "tono" and various voice inflections.  He is briefly able to use other words when he is asked to count to 20 towards the end of the video.

(From your mom, and info from UIC COM's Dr. Best's Nnuro lecture.)