What is it about?
Individuals with Wernicke's aphasia have severe difficulty understanding others' speech and monitoring their own speech. This results in severe communication breakdowns when they are trying to communicate with others. In the acute medical setting, their Wernicke's aphasia could be misinterpreted as delirium and the their psychological/emotional reactions (e.g., agitation, anger) to aphasia associated communication breakdowns can be mismanaged as primary psychiatric concerns.
Featured Image
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This article provides suggestions for healthcare professionals to prevent misdiagnosis and mismanagement of Wernicke's aphasia and associated behaviors as a psychiatric condition.
Perspectives
This article is based on a case report and the authors' practice based perspectives relevant to Wernicke's aphasia differential diagnosis and management.
Dr. Adithya Chandregowda
Nova Southeastern University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Watch Out! It Is Not Delirium—It Is Wernicke's Aphasia!, Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, November 2024, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA),
DOI: 10.1044/2024_persp-23-00296.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
