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Rehabilitation Practice and Science

Translated Title

雙語失語症患者兩種語言不同程度之損傷與恢復：病例報告

Abstract

According to the definition proposed by Grosjean, more than half of the world population is multilingual. Bilingual aphasia is more complex and variable; thus it may need a more individualized rehabilitation program than monolingual aphasia. However, many instances of bilingual aphasia may have been misdiagnosed and treated as monolingual aphasia due to a lack of comprehensive assessment.We present here a change in the language pattern of a bilingual Chinese woman, who initially spoke Cantonese (mother language) and Mandarin (2nd language) very well. She was afflicted by aphasia due to a stroke involving cortical and subcortical lesions in 1999. After rehabilitation for 6 months, her general communication skills improved but she was still unable to fluently express herself in Mandarin, frequently requiring the help of gestures. However, she was able to comprehend and express herself in Cantonese for most daily activities. The differing functional recovery of the two languages may have occurred because of differences in acquiring them. Age and manner of acquisition seem to influence the way languages are stored in the brain. Hence, subsequent recanalization combined with revasculization that resulted in a decreased infarction area may affect the recovery of different language abilities to varying extents. This result is also consistent with ”Pitres'rule” and ”Ribot's law”. There are currently no standard bilingual aphasia tests available in Taiwan. Therefore, further research on the outcome for such patients after speech therapy is required and a modified Bilingual Aphasia Test for Taiwanese needs to be created.

Language

Traditional Chinese

First Page

97

Last Page

102

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