Relationship of types of
aphasia in hemiplegics to survival, outcome of rehabilitation,
activities of daily living (
ADL) and pre-existing risk factors,
hypertension (HT),
ischemic heart disease (IHD),
diabetes mellitus (DM) were studied in a group of 257 patients. The control group was a large population of CVA cases previously documented. Four main categories were considered: expressive-receptive (global), predominantly expressive (Broca), predominantly receptive (Wernicke) and predominantly amnestic (
anomia) aphasias. 40% of each category were female. No clear pattern emerged concerning relationship with risk factors; however,
hypertension, the factor most frequently encountered, was significantly less prevalent among expressive ahphasics, and
diabetes mellitus was rare among those with the receptive pattern. For all categories, the most frequent etiology was
thrombosis, the second being embolia. The oldest groups were the expressive-receptive and the predominantly
receptive aphasia groups: showed the poorest rehabilitation outcome in both
ADL and locomotion, and lived less time after
stroke (5.8 years). Amnestic and expressive patients were younger and fared better in all other parameters; an etiology of embolia was much more frequent among the former. It can be said that patients with the expressive-receptive kind of
aphasia have the worst survival and rehabilitation prognoses.