Content Creator: Thrisha Sanjeev Content Editor: Fariya Chohan In a recent online class, our teacher happened to play Shashi Tharoor’s speech at the Oxford Union, explaining why Britain owes reparations to its former colonies. Whilst staring into the screen trying to systematically take down notes, I couldn’t help but imagine, what would happen if one fine day Shashi Tharoor, a human dictionary woke up to find out that he just couldn’t grasp the right word to explain his thoughts? Oh! Imagine the frustration. You’re crystal clear with your thoughts and it's all right there, but you just can’t seem to find that word. You know what it is; it is at the tip of your tongue, yet you fail to find the appropriate word. That is anomia in layman’s terms. Anomic aphasia or anomia is a language disorder that impairs the comprehension and speech abilities of a person. An individual suffering from anomia, though fluent in terms of his speech, finds it difficult to associate a specific word to describe a certain situation. Every so often, a person with anomia may try paraphrasing in order to describe the word that they’re looking for. For instance, if a person is facing difficulties in actually being able to say ‘carrot’ they might say, “We use it in salads” or “it has a tapered end and is orange”. Anomia is known to be one of the mildest forms of aphasia, which is primarily caused by brain damage or a degenerative disease. An individual having suffered a stroke or a tough blow to the head, may experience anomia. A growing brain tumor can also cause anomia. It is interesting to note that, clinically, doctors and psychiatrists find it hard to diagnose a person with anomic aphasia, because it is a form of aphasia that in turn can be caused by varying issues specific to the brain. Anomia often leads to a communication breakdown between the participants of a communication medium. A communication breakdown refers to the interruptions during a communication process that leads to the transmission of half-baked information or can also cause a misunderstanding between participants. Such an issue causes frustration to the person suffering from anomia primarily because of them not being able to effectively convey their thoughts. In certain cases, this can further lead to depression. In a recent incident, a close family friend’s mother, after having a stroke, though not exactly diagnosed with anomic aphasia, was known to experience word-finding difficulty. She was unable to find the word for things as simple as an apple, despite knowing what she wanted to say, and may have also had a clear visual representation of the object or word in her head. Soon enough she began getting flustered and irritated, not knowing how or why such a thing was happening. Added problems led to the deterioration of her mental health, and eventually, the family consulted an aphasia therapist and also a guidance counselor. Anomia, though it sounds like something all of us encounter on a daily basis while talking, is indeed much more than just, “Bro oh my God, what’s that word again?”. It entails a deep neurological explanation and is undeniably a common issue faced by several persons. Hence, on a Tharoor-ian note, it would be fair to conclude that the blatant floccinaucinihilipilification of a subject as convoluted as anomia would be plain idiocy (yes, that is an actual word). References: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GsVhbmecJA ‘ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2373641/
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Content Creator: Thrisha Sajeev |
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