Left-Side Stroke (Dysphasia and Dysarthria) – Stroke Nursing Care in Med-Surg

00:01 Now, we talked about aphasia.

00:02 Now, we're talking about dysphasia, which is difficulty with communicating "dys," D-Y-S, means difficulty.

00:09 So, it's often used interchangeably with aphasia. That's why we made sure we talked to you about both words.

00:16 You got to think that's kind of funny when I'm talking about dysphasia, and my tongue gets tied.

00:20 And that's a good example of what dysphasia would look like.

00:24 So, nonfluent dysphasia is minimal and slow speech.

00:31 Now, I tend to speak very quickly.

00:33 So when I'm talking with someone with dysphasia, I have to be very cognizant of my facial expression, and I literally do the breathing stuff before I go in the room.

00:45 If they're fluent dysphasia, they have speech, but it's not consistently meaningful.

00:52 So, they'll hear themselves say a word, but they're not sure like, we have the -- "A, B, star, diamond, C." There'll be some words in there that don't really communicate what the patient is trying to articulate.

01:04 And they're just as surprised as you as where those words came from.

01:08 So keep that in mind. Part of that is like a little bit of a word game to figure out what the patient, the words that they really said with intention, and the one that just kind of flew out of their brain.

01:19 Now, dysarthria is difficulty with the muscular control of speech.

01:24 You might not realize, that's a really complex mechanism for you to manipulate your tongue and the air and the vocal cords and everything working together for you to make the sounds of your language.

01:36 So, it affects the mechanics of your speech, not the meaning.

01:40 So they know what they want to say, they just have a hard time saying it.

01:45 Think about if you went to the dentist and they numbed your tongue.

01:48 You know, when you come out, you're like, "Ha, ha, ha," that's kind of what the patient may feel.

01:53 So, they understand what you're saying. They know what they want to say.

01:58 They know the words they want to use, and they try to say them, but they have the muscular control of speech is what's difficult for them because they have a hard time pronouncing words, articulating, or making the sounds appropriately. That's dysarthria.

02:12 So, pause for a minute, and think about what's the difference between dysarthria, aphasia, and dysphasia? Go ahead and pause the video.

02:25 Write a couple notes to yourself without looking at your notes.

02:28 Then go back and look at your notes, and make sure those are all clear concepts to you because these are terms that you'll hear a healthcare team use regularly.