Phillip and some others were interested in knowing about the tests for aphasia. Here is a list of some of them:
Porch Index of Communicative Ability (PICA)
Token Test
Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE)
Western Aphasia Battery
Minnesota Test for Differential Diagnosis of Aphasia
Halstead-Wepman Aphasia Screening Test
Head's Serial Tests
Language Modalities Test
Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities
Michigan Picture Language Inventory
Functional Communication Profile
Examining for Aphasia
Sklar Aphasia Scale
Neurosensory Center Comprehensive Examination for Aphasia
The most popular test is the BDAE. In this older article they compare that test with another popular one, called the Western Aphasia Battery. They find that the two tests agree on only 27% of the cases! The authors conclude that they both are good and bad in different ways, mainly that the BDAE fails to classify 60% of the patients and the WAB classifies everyone but whether or not it does so accurately remains to be seen.
As for confusing aphasia with other disorders (mentioned by Phillip), there is definitely the possibility that aphasia can be confused with apraxia or dysarthria. Here is what the National Aphasia Association said about confusing aphasia with dementia.
Dementia: A condition of impairment of memory, intellect, personality, and insight resulting from brain injury or disease. Some forms of dementia are progressive, such as Alzheimer's disease, Picks disease, or some forms of Parkinson's disease. Language impairments are more or less prominent in different forms of dementia, but these are usually overshadowed by more widespread intellectual loss. Since dementia is so often a progressive disorder, the prognosis is quite different from aphasia.
They can certainly co-occur as well, so someone with dementia may also have aphasia.
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2 comments:
I'm still a little confused about how the two tests for the same disease can be so different. Maybe it's because I couldn't understand the article. Also I don't believe we are covering Dementia. Or will it be covered in the judgment lecture?
Yeah, it's definitely weird that two "reliable" tests could come up with such different results. But think of it this way: on our exam in class, we asked both short answer questions and multiple choice questions. Some people did well on both and others did well on one section and not the other. Both SA and MC are getting at the same thing: what you have learned in our class. They are just 2 different ways of testing the same thing. Usually clinicians will do several tests on patients to determine what disorder they have which is called having converging evidence.
No, we are not covering Dementia, but it's related to Alzheimer's. Don't worry, it won't be on the exam!
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