Agraphia and Anomia Resulting from Epilepsy

Not being a doctor or Alzheimer’s or even an Epilepsy expert, this is nothing more than my own opinion. Alzheimer’s is the most common form of Dementia. Dementia starts with memory loss and eventually intelligence, thinking and reasoning loss severe enough to interfere with daily activities making life difficult or impossible. Some of that loss may be caused by plaque and tangles in the brain. Both of which most people get to some degree as they age. However they are much more common in Alzheimer’s patients. Alzheimer’s patients develop them in a more frequent and predictable pattern that go to other parts of the brain, eventually making communication to other nerve cells difficult or impossible primary due to nerve cell death. My opinion is that this process does not start based only on memory damage caused by Epilepsy. Memory damage can be caused from a variety of causes including head injuries, medication, alcohol or drug abuse, numerous diseases, infections, strokes, amnesia which is my primary nemesis. Although quite rare, I suffer from Convulsive Status Epilepticus and had my first experience with it at age 15. After waking from an induced coma after a month I suffered Retrograde Amnesia, (Rare in my situation) which is loss of memory prior to onset of disease/condition, in my case the seizures, so I forgot everything prior to the seizures. I have been suffering from your same issues 12271997 and in the last 50 years I’ve have many thousands of seizures of various kinds including more Status and my memory is worse. The good news is my ability for comprehension, communication, thinking and reasoning have not become more impaired. So look on the bright side, you have to approximately an 82% chance of not getting Alzheimer’s, good odds in my opinion.

I see my neurologist at the end of the month. On Dec 12 2017 I asked him if I was having early onset altheimer's/dementia. He told me no it was just all the seizures and surgeries I had had. I'm like you it was before 2011 when I had the lobotomy. I was going through the tests where you're in a hospital and they're monitoring you trying to get you to have a seizure (s) to see what causes them, what happens, and where they come from? They took me off my meds, deprived me of sleep, and flashed lights. I had convulsive status epilepticus 180 seizures in 10 days with 2 heart attacks. They induced me into a coma as well. I have retrograde amnesia not of my childhood or college but of a lot of 20 yrs of marriage. I've said before I've had several thousand seizures coming from the left temporal lobe resulting in the brain damage. I had also had a stroke before I had the surgery. The good news is I have a 4 1/2 year old son and a happy marriage

I tried to go to the aphasia mtg today at 11am est. I typed in the address and then it sent me to zoom. I clicked it and it said waiting for instructor. After 15 min of waiting I tried my I-phone and it said I had the wrong address

So sorry to hear about your your Status, heart attacks and stroke. It’s fantastic that your happily married and have a child. That must be the ultimate in happiness!! I can relate to your memory issues and hope they don’t get any worse. Best of luck.

How are you relating to my memory issues

@12271997
I’ve had numerous StatusEpilepticus episodes and with each one I lost some memory. I don’t claim to be able to relate to your stroke or heart attacks only memory problems and Epilepsy. I lost 15 years of memory during my first Status episode but many more followed. Wishing you the best 12271997.

I went to my neurologist yesterday he's referring me to a speech pathologist for anomic aphasia problems talking and writing. The words I want to say are on the tip of my tongue or I'm writing a word wrong

Thanks for starting this topic @12271997
I'm tagging @hopeful33250 to also join in.

12271997, You may be interested in reading or posting to this discussion on Aphasia:
Let's "Talk" About Aphasia https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/june-is-national-aphasia-month/

Hello @12271997

I am glad to hear that your doctor is referring you for speech therapy. Several years ago I had surgery for a paralyzed vocal cord and had speech therapy both before and after the surgery. It was wonderful!

I would encourage you to follow up with the speech therapy. There are certain home exercises that you might be encouraged to do, but one thing that is helpful is to spend some time reading out loud. Take your time, read slowly, and pause where there is punctuation (commas and periods). One of the most important things you can do for speech problems is to speak slowly.

I found that anxiety about my ability to speak would often make me speak quickly and that resulted in more problems. I would encourage you to take a look at the National Aphasia Association website at https://www.aphasia.org/. Many Aphasia groups also have singing groups. Singing has been known to help you speak better. Often people with severe speech problems will sing words that they might not be able to speak, so take a look for some Aphasia singing groups in your area.

Here are some websites that you might find interesting regarding singing, From Singing to Speaking, http://www.strokeassociation.org/STROKEORG/LifeAfterStroke/RegainingIndependence/CommunicationChallenges/From-Singing-to-Speaking-Its-Amazing-To-See_UCM_310600_Article.jsp#.WzQQD9JKiM8

From Singing to Speaking: Why Singing May Lead to Recovery of Expressive Language Function in Patients with Broca's Aphasia
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3010734/
When you become very intentional about recovering your speech you will find many resources and support networks as I did.

I look forward to hearing from you again.

Teresa

You're right about singing, Music must come from a different part of the brain. I'm in my Church choir. I practice Wed and sing Sun. I don't have any problems. I can't read music but I never tried to learned to learn the notes or play an instrument