Aphasia Following Right Thalamic Hemorrhage in a Dextral

A 74-year-old, right-handed woman with a right thalamic hemorrhage and aphasia is described. Sequential neurologic examinations and aphasia testing were carried out during a 1-year period and the results are reported. The patient exhibited a language deficit resembling a transcortical aphasia in the acute stage. Reduced spontaneous speech, fading voice volume, fluent verbal output with paraphasia, anomia, and a mild comprehension difficulty were present. Repetition was good. At 1 year postonset, the primary language problem exhibited by the patient was in object naming, all other components of the original language deficit having shown good recovery. This is the first reported case of right thalamic involvement in speech/language in the absence of personal and familial sinistrality