Several age-related conditions can cause poor communication, including declining hearing and sight, as well as changes in voice and language impairment from cognitive loss or diseases. A stroke can cause permanent tissue damage affecting speech, language, and dexterity, depending on where it occurs in the brain. Agnosia impairs the ability to comprehend stimuli while apraxia affects voluntary muscle movement, and dysarthria impacts speech muscles. Aphasia can be caused by an aneurysm and affects all aspects of language, resulting in the inability to recall or retain new information, read, write, speak, or comprehend, manifesting as nonsensical speech or an expressive versus receptive form.

1. Paige Thompson
March 29th, 2015
ASM 150
Week 1 Reflection
Several age-related conditions can cause or contribute to poor
communication. Natural physiologic changes in hearing, sight, voice, and
speech processing take place as a person gets older, even if they had no
difficulty communicating before. Among these, declining hearing and sight
may be the most obvious, such as macular degeneration or presbycusis, but
changes in voice (tremor, pitch, rate of speech) and language impairment
caused by cognitive loss, dementia, illness, disease, or accidents causing brain
damage, (such as stroke, cancer, or degenerative neurological diseases) as
well as conditions like aphasia, agnosia, apraxia or dysarthria may also cause
major difficulties.
A stroke or CVA (cerebrovascular accident) causes permanent tissue
damage and affects speech, language, and dexterity. If it occurs in the occipital
lobe, it can affect vision. In 2/3 of the population, it affects the left side of the
brain, in turn, affecting the right side of the body, causing difficulty showing
expression on one side of the face, forming words with one side of the mouth,
or the ability to write with one hand, even if it was the dominant hand before
the event

2. Agnosia causes an impairment in the ability to comprehend the
significance of incoming stimuli- the can hear someone saying their name, but
they don’t realize that they are talking to them. Apraxia affects the voluntary
movement of muscles; conscious, voluntary movement is impaired although
the muscle works well and they may use the muscle well unconsciously—
there is a disconnect between the brain telling the muscle to move, and the
muscle moving. Dysarthria, common in Parkinson’s or with an accident, is
speech muscle impairment: the muscle itself is damaged or weakened.
Aphasia can be caused by an aneurysm and affects the “capacity to deal with
all aspects of symbolic language—verbal, gestural, visual and graphic.” It
affects ability to retain new information or recall old information and causes a
loss of the ability to read, write, speak, or comprehend. Aphasia can manifest
as gibberish or nonsensical speech and can be expressive or recessive.
Expressive aphasia is the ability to formulate sentences, remember words,
and deliver thoughts with emotion—thoughts come out almost robotic and
only the main points come out. Automatic phrases, slang and swearing
become more prevalent. With recessive aphasia, comprehension of spoken
words and written messages becomes difficult, though interpretation of
nonverbal communication remains in tact. Recessive aphasia also causes self-
hearing impairment: physical hearing is in working order, but they can’t hear
themselves to hear that they don’t make sense to those they are speaking to.