User:Ottawahitech/Aphasia

Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions.[2] The major causes are stroke and head trauma. Aphasia can also be the result of brain tumors, brain infections, or neurodegenerative diseases, but the latter are far less prevalent. To be diagnosed with aphasia, a person's speech or language must be significantly impaired in one (or more) of the four aspects of communication following acquired brain injury. Alternately, in the case of progressive aphasia, it must have significantly declined over a short period of time. The four aspects of communication are auditory comprehension, verbal expression, reading and writing, and functional communication.

Quotes

 * Bruce Willis: After dealing with health issues, the Die Hard star was diagnosed with aphasia, "which is impacting his cognitive abilities," Willis' family shared in March 2022. That led him to the difficult decision to retire from acting.

"As a result of this and with much consideration Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him," his family — wife Emma Heming Willis; daughters Rumer Willis, Scout Willis, Tallulah Willis, Mabel Willis and Evelyn Willis and ex-wife Demi Moore — said.

"As Bruce always says, 'Live it up' and together we plan to do just that." "I came home from that stroke stuttering, couldn't read for two years," she said. "... It's been a humbling journey: I was on Law & Order ... and I had a hard time with my lines. I can talk about it now because I'm OK now ... I feel really good about talking and having my full vocabulary."
 * Sharon Stone: Stone bled for nine days, and then spent the next two years "learning to walk and talk again," both symptoms of aphasia.

"I became more emotionally intelligent," Stone told ABC News. "I chose to work very hard to open up other parts of my mind. Now I'm stronger. And I can be abrasively direct. That scares people, but I think that's not my problem. It's like, I have brain damage; you'll just have to deal with it.” I was sent back to the I.C.U. and, after about a week, the aphasia passed. I was able to speak.
 * Emilia Clarke: I was suffering from a condition called aphasia, a consequence of the trauma my brain had suffered," she said in a 2019 essay for The New Yorker. "In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug. I asked the medical staff to let me die. My job — my entire dream of what my life would be — centered on language, on communication. Without that, I was lost.”
 * Gabby Giffords: Aphasia really sucks," she told PBS News Hour in 2021. "The words are there in my brain. I just can't get them out. I love to talk. I'm gabby.
 * Dick Clark: Last year I had a stroke. It left me in bad shape. I had to teach myself how to walk and talk again. It's been a long, hard fight. My speech is not perfect but I'm getting there.
 * [[Randy Travis[[: In my case, my brain was functioning, and I could understand what [his wife] Mary said to me, but I could not respond in anything close to a sentence," Travis wrote in his 2019 memoir.  "When we first returned home, I could barely speak at all. We spent three months in speech therapy before I learned to say the letter 'A.' Eventually, after about a year and a half, I could say 'yup,' 'nope,' and 'bathroom.' I could also say 'I love you' and a few other phrases but not much more. All this was extremely frustrating for me; I felt like I was trapped inside the shell of my body.
 * 6 Celebrities Who Have Dealt with Aphasia (March 30, 2022)