Agraphia is the partial or total inability to express ideas through writing.
Agraphia or agraphia is a medical concept that refers to the complete or partial inability to express ideas through writing . This disability becomes noticeable as a result of an injury or a brain disorder .
The term has its origin in Greek, coming from a cultism of that language that is made up of two parts. On the one hand, there is the prefix a- , which means “without”; and on the other hand there is the word graphy which could be translated as “writing”. In this way, it is clear that the etymological origin of said concept tells us that agraphia refers to something without writing or to someone who cannot carry out writing.
It should be noted that agraphia also refers to the condition of agraphist , the name given to those who cannot master writing, do not know how to do it or are not very skilled at it. In other words, agraphia describes the loss of skills that allow writing for traumatic reasons, beyond any motor alteration.
It must be taken into account that agraphia is a disability of variable scope that does not allow those who suffer from it to make their thoughts, ideas, processes or sequences known in writing, although they can express them with the spoken word .
Types of agraphy
There are several types of agraphia that are fundamentally classified depending on the area of the brain that is affected and therefore causes them. Thus, in this way, one can speak of pure, aphasic , alexia , spatial or apraxic agraphia .
Specifically, for example, the last type of agraphia mentioned is the one that means that the patient does not have any type of problem when “writing” with the keyboard of a computer but does have difficulties when doing the same with a pencil or a pen. Thus, when doing it by hand you will make very deformed letters so it will be very difficult for you to write whether they are uppercase or lowercase letters.
In addition to the aforementioned classifications, we should also talk about what is known as afferent agraphia . In this case, the patient's main obstacle when it comes to expressing himself and communicating with writing is that it is difficult for him to separate the words and even maintain their horizontal line.
There are various types of agraphia.
Related terms
Agraphia is related to other terms. For example, with dysgraphia , marked by a deficit in ability and skill when writing and is considered a form of dyslexia . It is also linked to aphasia (a problem characterized by the loss or difficulty in mastering language due to damage to certain areas of the brain).
On the other hand, it is worth highlighting alexia , a condition that is characterized by leaving those who suffer from it with the inability to read, even when the ability to read had already been acquired. Alexia usually presents with a picture of agraphia, even though the affected person can speak and understand the language they hear.
Finally, it can be highlighted that agrammatism is a linguistic element linked to expression aphasia, which is characterized by the frequent elimination of grammatical morphemes (such as articles, prepositions and personal pronouns) and the shortening of sentences to a simple sequence of lexical morphemes.