A patient is shown a ‘pen’ and was asked to name it – Medicine MCQ

A patient is shown a ‘pen’ and was asked to name it. He replied as ‘pencil’. Identify the type of language disorder in this patient.
A. Motor aphasia
B. Phonemic paraphasia
C. Conduction aphasia
D. Semantic paraphasia

Correct answer : D. Semantic paraphasia

• In motor aphasia, fluency, naming and repetition is impaired.
• Wernicke’s aphasia– comprehension, repetition and naming is impaired, fluency is preserved.
• Paraphasia – inability to use the appropriate word. There are two types of paraphasia:
  • Semantic paraphasia – use of incorrect but a related word
  • Phonemic paraphasia – the word approximates the correct answer, but is phonetically incorrect. ( eg; plentil instead of pencil )

Ref: Harrison’s principles of Internal Medicine, 19th edition, Page 177
Image credits: Trounce (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:03-BICcristal2008-03-26.jpg); Dmgerman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pencils_hb.jpg). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.