What is aphasia?

The world learned on Wednesday that Hollywood legend Bruce Willis, 67, would retire due to his diagnosis of aphasia, a potentially devastating condition that causes a person to lose communication skills. According to the Stroke Association, a UK based group, those who suffer Wernicke's aphasia have the ability to string together long sentences of words, but will often say things in a way that they do not make sense, or even use made up words. Dr Brenda Rapp, a cognitive scientist at Johns Hopkins University, explains that aphasia is often caused by a stroke, and can manifest itself in many different ways While the average person would clearly understand who kicked who in that scenario, a person dealing with this type of the condition may struggle to figure out whether John or the dog was the person that did the kicking. Broca's aphasia will often cause a person to forget words or put together a proper string of words even when their brain can fully understand what they want to say.