Age and evolution of language area functions. A study on adult stroke patients.

This study attempted to verify some of the hypotheses advanced to explain the repeatedly reported finding that non-fluent aphasics are younger than fluent aphasics. One hundred and ninety eight vascular patients with cerebral infarcts documented by CT-scan were investigated. Also in this sample fluent patients were older than non-fluent patients. Age was found not to differ according to lesion site (anterior versus posterior). Patients with extensive lesions were, on average, younger than those with more restricted damage. The most interesting finding was that more than half patients with anterior lesion had fluent aphasia and that were remarkably older than anterior patients presenting with the classical non-fluent picture. It is inferred that anterior language areas undergo some kind of progressive functional evolution with age, though not in the sense postulated by Brown and Jaffe.