Living with logopenic aphasia

In this video (~10 minutes) Jenny who has a diagnosis of logopenic aphasia describes how the condition affects her.

We have also prepared a 3 minute version for those short on time.

Logopenic aphasia is one of the ‘primary progressive aphasias’. Primary progressive aphasia is a subtype of FTD in which changes in language skills are the earliest and most prominent symptoms.

Types of primary progressive aphasia are:
• Semantic dementia or SD
• Progressive nonfluent aphasia or PNFA
• Logopenic aphasia or LPA

Symptoms of LPA include:
• Difficulty finding the right word to say
• Pausing in the middle of sentences
• Difficulty repeating sentences

LPA is often included as a form of frontotemporal dementia because the temporal lobes are particularly affected in this condition. However, when investigating the changes in the brain of people who have LPA under the microscope, it is often Alzheimer’s pathology (the amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles we learned about in Week 1) that is observed.