Aphasia

For over 150 years aphasia has been extensively studied, mostly in the acute and subacute stages of stroke. In the current era, this bedrock work has been augmented by the study of aphasia in the hyper-acute phase of stroke (initial hours after infarct) and in degenerative diseases characterized by early and prominent language impairment—primary progressive aphasia. Likewise, classical models of language organization in the brain have been substantially updated in recent years. This article reviews the clinical phenomenology of aphasia as it manifests in stroke and degenerative diseases and provides an overview of the classical and contemporary models of language and aphasia.