What is primary progressive aphasia (PPA)?
Learn more about primary progressive aphasia and the various types of PPA. PPA is different from the more typical presentation of dementia. With Alzheimer’s dementia, memory loss is one of the first signs. With PPA, difficulty with language is the first sign, while memory and reasoning are usually not affected in the early stages.
Should you treat primary progressive aphasia after a stroke?
You may feel comfortable treating clients with dementia as well as those with aphasia after a stroke, but what about clients with primary progressive aphasia? Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a relatively rare, and often under-diagnosed, neurological disorder that primarily affects language and the person’s ability to communicate.
Can SLPs help people with aphasia and PPA?
The idea of gaining lost language is more applicable to aphasia caused by a stroke or a traumatic brain injury. But SLPs can still be helpful when it comes to PPA, working with people to maintain language skills. They can work with the family to find new ways to communicate or use tools that aid communication.
Do I need a speech therapist for aphasia?
Many resources about aphasia suggest working with a speech therapist because SLPs help people regain lost communication skills. The idea of gaining lost language is more applicable to aphasia caused by a stroke or a traumatic brain injury. But SLPs can still be helpful when it comes to PPA, working with people to maintain language skills.
What is the difference between aphasia and PPA?
Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurological disorder that affects a person's ability to speak and communicate. Aphasia is a language disorder that results from damage to key parts of your brain that are responsible for understanding or producing speech and/or writing.
Can PPA be misdiagnosed?
Neuroimaging signatures may also be discriminative in differential diagnosis. We present two cases in which PPA was initially misdiagnosed, and in which misinterpretation of neuroimaging contributed to delayed diagnosis.
Is frontotemporal dementia the same as primary progressive aphasia?
Primary progressive aphasia is a type of frontotemporal dementia, a cluster of related disorders that results from the degeneration of the frontal or temporal lobes of the brain, which include brain tissue involved in speech and language.
What is non fluent PPA?
People with nonfluent variant primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA) tend to come to the doctor's office with complaints about pronouncing words or increasing trouble getting words out. Their speech may sound slurred, or their voice may change.
Can SLPs diagnose PPA?
Although people with PPA have a progressive and neurodegenerative illness, SLPs should not shy away from treating patients diagnosed with this rare condition.
Does PPA show on MRI?
Patients with a rare neurodegenerative brain disorder called Primary Progressive Aphasia, or PPA, show abnormalities in brain function in areas that look structurally normal on an MRI scan.
Is PPA and FTD the same?
Frontotemporal dementia or FTD is a progressive disorder of the brain. It can can affect behaviour, language skills and movement. Primary progressive aphasia or PPA is one of the subtypes of FTD.
How fast does PPA progress?
Although it is often said that the course of the illness progresses over approximately 7–10 years from diagnosis to death, recent studies suggest that some forms of PPA may be slowly progressive for 12 or more years (Hodges et al. 2010), with reports of up to 20 years depending on how early a diagnosis is made.
Is Pick's disease the same as primary progressive aphasia?
Pick's disease can cause primary progressive aphasia (PPA). This condition involves a gradual loss of language skills, including your ability to speak, understand other people speaking and more.
What is non progressive aphasia?
Progressive Non-Fluent Aphasia Progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA) is a disorder of language characterized by nonfluent spontaneous speech, with hesitancy, agrammatism, and phonemic errors, requiring significant effort in speech production.
What is non-fluent aphasia?
Broca's aphasia is also known as non-fluent aphasia. Speech is effortful and sounds rather stilted, with most utterances limited to 4 words or less. A person with Broca's aphasia relies mostly on important key words (nouns and verbs) to communicate their message.
Is PPA fluent or nonfluent?
People with the nonfluent/agrammatic variant of PPA (nfvPPA, also known as PPA-G), also called progressive nonfluent aphasia or PNFA, find it increasingly difficult to speak yet can still recall the meanings of individual words.
What Is PPA?
The gradual degeneration of brain tissue in the parts of the brain that control speech and language causes PPA. That tissue loss slowly impacts communication skills, though the speed and way it progresses vary from person to person (and from one subtype of PPA to another). While strokes cause a sudden, immediate change in communication abilities, PPA is gradual. This means people with PPA may lose the ability to speak, write, read, or understand language over time. Once words and communication begin to go, people with PPA may find other changes occur including memory loss.
What Are the Types of PPA?
There are three types of PPA. People with agrammatic PPA have trouble producing words. They “remember words but they struggle to speak and to string grammatical sentences together. They can understand single words but find sentences harder.” They may have difficulty getting the word out of their mouth or have halting speech filled with pauses. At the same time, this type of PPA affects listening skills, and people with agrammatic PPA may not understand what is being said as the disease progresses.
What Are the Early Stages of PPA?
PPA differs from person to person, so it is impossible to predict how long each stage will last. Initially, for a period that can last many months to a couple of years, a person diagnosed with PPA will exhibit a progressive loss of speech and language capabilities. At this stage, the rest of life may continue as usual, including work and daily activities.
Can Speech Therapy Help PPA?
Many resources about aphasia suggest working with a speech therapist because SLPs help people regain lost communication skills. The idea of gaining lost language is more applicable to aphasia caused by a stroke or a traumatic brain injury.
What does it mean when you have a logopenic PPA?
People with logopenic PPA have trouble plucking the correct word from their brain. They may say a word that is closely related or say the wrong word that sounds similar to the one they want. Similar to people with agrammatic PPA, their speech may be filled with pauses, and they may also have difficulty repeating back a sentence.
What to do if you don't care for pineapple?
If they don’t care for or need to talk about pineapple, then leave the word out of treatment.”. Also, it can be helpful to create “PPA cards,” a card the person can carry in their pocket with an explanation to hand others as well as common phrases they may need to remember while interacting with other people.
Is PPA rare?
While primary progressive aphasia (PPA) may be the rarest form of apha sia, we frequently get questions because there are fewer resources out there for this neurodegenerative disease. Treating PPA differs from treating aphasia caused by a stroke or traumatic brain injury, highlighting the fact that aphasia information is rarely one-size-fits-all.