We reported on four aphasics who showed anosodiaphoria foward aphasia and unwillingness to attend speech therapy. Several factors, such as multiple lesions, severe frontal sign, continuous disturbance of consciousness etc., have generally been thought to be causes of anosognosia. Here we selected anosodiaphoric patients who were not affected by any of these factors, in order to exclude such influences in the study.
The spontaneous speech of the four cases demonstrated identical characteristics I fluency and effortlessness (although the number of words was not large). Recovery of language was comparatively good except writing ability, which remained severely impaired.
Two cases clearly denied language disturbance in the early stage. Later, all four cases admitted their disabilities only when they were pointed out in specific terms. None of the cases were embarrassed by their disabilities, however. Nor did they complain of any kind of discommunication spontaneously during the course of the study. Three cases showed emotional change (flat unconcern and euphoria) and two cases having right hemiparesis displayed right-sided neglect at the first stage.
The lesions of the four cases were all in the left subcortical area. Alexander et al., etc. have also pointed out the existence of emotional disorder, right-sided neglect and reduction of motivation in left subcortical damaged aphasics. As a result of this study we concluded that anosodiaphoria foward aphasia, along with the other characteristics, resulted from attentional disorder which originated from damage of the left subcortical structure. We also assumed that fluent speech had some influence on the occurrence of anosodiaphoria foward aphasia.
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