1) Aphasia is a condition caused by damage to the language areas of the brain, usually the left side, resulting from a stroke. It impairs a person's ability to communicate through speech, writing, and comprehension of language. 2) Healthcare workers and caregivers find aphasia to be one of the most challenging aspects of caring for stroke patients due to difficulties in communication. 3) Aphasia interferes with a person's ability to discuss their condition verbally, which is an important part of coping and treatment. The loss of this communication ability can cause immense suffering.

1. The Management of Aphasia By Ruth Hazel Katz
Aphasia is a by-product of a stroke in the left side of the brain, where, in the vast majority of individuals, the language function
is stored
Aphasia is important to discuss in detail for these reasons:
1. Healthcare workers have identified aphasia as the single most challenging aspect of interacting with stroke patients,
2. My personal and professional difficulty in communicating with aphasics
3. The struggle most caregivers have in this area
To me, the letter ‘A’, stands for aphasia, agony, anguish, and the abrupt cessation of the power of speech, wholly or in part
Professor Claire Penn, of the Department of Speech Pathology & Audiology, at Wits University, in her chapter of:
‘Stroke: Caring & Coping’ , (Wits University Press, 1992), defines aphasia - or dysphasia as it is sometimes referred to -
as an impairment in the ability to use symbols
She goes on to say language involves a number of levels: comprehension, expression, reading and writing
In the case of hearing impaired individuala, there are other forms of expression, such as gestures and sign language
An aphasic patient has difficulty in formulating what he or she wants to say, as well as in retrieving and understanding
language
Joseph Jaffe, a psychiatrist interested in aphasia, writes:
“Human Beings can adapt themselves to almost any situation if they can communicate about it. Aphasics, however, are
unique in that they have lost the very capability for healing conversations with others that might help them cope with their
disorder.
Their disease is essentially cruel, because it interferes with the major vehicle of its own treatment”
During my ‘almost’ two decades as a counsellor for the Stroke Aid Association, Norwood, Johannesburg;
a dynamic executive in his early forties died by his own hand, after a left hemisphere stroke removed his power to speak”