Cognitive Impairments in Aphasic Stroke Patients: Clinical Implicationsfor Diagnosis and Rehabilitation: A Review Study

Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to undertake a narrative review of qualitative studies on the operational mechanism of non-linguistic modalities connected to language. Introduction: Post-stroke aphasia has received much attention lately due to the debilitating effects it has on patient's communication skills. Research has shown that language plays a centralized role in human cognition and therefore, cognitive impairments usually co-occur with language disturbances due to the interrelatory and complementary function of higher cognitive skills. Methods: Keyword searches of Pubmed, manual searches of other relevant journals and reference lists of related articles. Results: Data gathered revealed that language is a complex cognitive skill which plays a central role in human cognition. Therefore, it is directly connected to other higher cognitive skills and as such should not be assessed in isolation. Deficits in cognitive skills like attention, memory and executive functions may impair language functions and if left untreated can hinder and slow down language recovery despite aphasia therapy. Conclusions: A cognitive-linguistic method of assessment for evaluating language abilities in post-stroke survivors with aphasia should be utilised. Also, emphasis should be laid on redeveloping the non-linguistic skill affected while aphasia therapy is been provided in other to achieve optimum restoration of linguistic skills.