Articles: aphasia-etiology.
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We report the case of a 81-year-old, immunocompromised Patient, admitted to our hospital with new-onset headaches and word-finding difficulties. The MRI of the brain revealed a temporal mass on the left with marginal contrast-enhancement. During the next days Listeria monocytogenes grew in the bloodcultures so that the diagnosis of a brain-abscess caused by Listeria was established. ⋯ The MRI after therapy demonstrated no abscess persistence. Listeria mostly cause infections in the immunocompromised, elderly, newborn or pregnant host. Next to bacteraemia without a focus, CNS-invasion with meningitis, meningoencephalitis or less frequent abcess-formation (5-10%) is the most important manifestation.
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Case Reports
[Deficits of mnemonic rhyme for the multiplication table (Kuku) after right putaminal hemorrhage].
In Japan, the multiplication table is learned predominantly by rote learning of reciting multiplication table (which is named Kuku) with a standardized mnemonic rhymes. The Kuku is memorized intensively by oral repetitions. Therefore, it is not clear whether the neuropsychological features of the deficit of the Kuku and that of the multiplication table in Western countries after brain injury are the same or not. ⋯ Moreover, our patient did not make any errors when the first operand of the Kuku was 5. Sparing of multiplication errors when the first operand is 5 has been reported in another Japanese case study on acalculia as well as in studies of healthy Japanese children; however, this has never been reported in Western studies. Therefore, it was suggested that there were similarities as well as differences between the deficits of multiplication table in Western and Japanese patients after brain injury.
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The best predictor of successful language therapy after stroke is a high intensity of treatment (with 5-10 h training per week). However, the necessity of several hours of language exercises each day draws considerably on attentional and cognitive resources of the patients. Thus, not all aphasic patients may be equally suited for intense training approaches. ⋯ Patients in the acute stage benefit most from intense aphasia treatment, when long-term memory consolidation is relatively preserved. For the chronic stage, indirect evidence suggests that premorbid intelligence as well as attentional functions have positive effects on the success of intense therapy. An empirically based allocation of patients to intense aphasia treatment awaits the results of multicenter trials with sufficiently large sample sizes.
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A 30-year-old farmer was bitten by his camel on the left side of the neck. He suffered immediate loss of consciousness but recovered three days later with right-sided hemiplegia and complete aphasia. ⋯ He was managed conservatively with physiotherapy and low dose aspirin. At six months of follow up, his speech remains slurred but comprehensible and is able to walk with a walking stick.