F-4-01-01
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SIDES OF LINGUISTIC CEREBRAL DOMINANCE AND MANUALITY IN CHINESE APHASICS
Yinhua Wang (Beijing Medical University, Beijing, China)
Purpose: To study the relations between the sides of linguistic cerebral dominance and of cerebral lesions and manuality in Chinese aphasics and whether there is essential difference between Chinese Han nationality and Westerners in the linguistic cerebral dominant laterality.
Method: 309 cases of cerebral infarction (225 cases) and cerebral hemorrhage (84 cases) at the acute stage of illness were studied by Standardized Aphasia Battery in Chinese (APE) and Manuality Test. A11 cases were at their first onset of cerebral vascular disease (CVD) and were orientated. Cranial CT scan demonstrated single cerebral lesion in each case. Aphasia was divided into 10 types, and manuality was divided into dextrals and nondextrals.
Result: 286 cases (92.56%) were dextrals and 23 cases (7.44 %) were nondextrals. The lesions of 222 cases (71.85%) were in the left cerebral hemisphere and 87 cases (28.15%) were in the right cerebral hemisphere. 170 cases (55.02%) were normal in their speech and 139 (44.98%) with aphasia of 10 types, of whom, 134 cases (96.40%)were dextral and 5 (3.60%) were nondextral. 136 patients (97.84%) were aphasic due to lesions of the left cerebral hemisphere, of whom, 131 cases (94.24%) were dextral and 5 (3.60%) were nondextral. 0nly 3 dextrals (2.16%) were with crossed aphasia due to lesions of the right cerebral hemisphere.
Conclusion: The majority of the Chinese Han nationality had their linguistic cerebral dominance in the left cerebral hemisphere, no totter whether they were dextral or not, which had no essential difference between Chinese and Westerners.
F-4-01-02
CALCULATION ABILITIES OF APHASIC PATIENTS
Hiroko Igarashi, Tomoyuki Kojima, Masahiro Kato (Edogawa Hospital, Tokyo, Japan)
The purpose of this study was to investigate the calculation abilities of aphasic patients in terms of 1) the age of the subjects at the onset of aphasia, 2) the lesion sites in the brains of the subjects, 3) the types of aphasia, 4) a comparison between the patients' performances in addition/subtraction and multiplication/division tasks and 5) the relationships between the patients' linguistic abilities and their calculation abilities. The subjects were 79 chronic aphasic patients (64 males and 15 females). Sixteen of the patients were less than 41 years old (younger group) and 63 were more than 41 years old at the onset of aphasia (older group). We analyzed in detail the performances of the patients in the Standard Language Test of Aphasia (SLTA) including their performances in calculation tasks at the time when their performances were at their highest levels in the course of recovery. The results were as follows: As for the calculation tasks, 1) the performance level was correlated with the total SLTA score, 2) the younger group performed better than the older group, 3) Broca's aphasia patients performed better than the mixed-type aphasia patients and the total aphasia patients, 4) no such differences were observed for differences in lesion site, 5) the levels of performances in addition and subtraction tasks were higher than those in multiplication and division tasks and 6) in cluster analysis of all of the scores for the SLTA subtests (27 variants), addition and subtraction were classified with auditory and visual comprehension of words and short sentences, while multiplication and division were classified with written object naming using kana (characters representing phonemes) and writing to dictation of individual kana. There results suggest that regarding disturbances of calculation abilities in aphasic patients, 1) the severity of the calculation ability disturbances depends on the severity of the linguistic ability disturbance, 2) the final outcome of recovery is better for younger patients than the older patients, 3) differences in the severity of the calculation ability disturbance are not associated with differences in the types of aphasia or the lesion site in the brain, 4) addition/subtraction is easier than multiplication/division for aphasic patients and 5) the addition/subtraction abilities and the multiplication/division abilities have different relationships to the linguistic abilities.
