Fluent Aphasia From Herpes Simplex Encephalitis

The present case report introduces a patient with fluent aphasia, anterograde amnesia and anosmia due to herpes simplex encephalitis after her first delivery. The left medial temporal lobe was one of the main areas involved. On aphasia testing she showed severe anomia on both confrontation and free recall, agraphia, alexia, repetition disorder and some auditory comprehension impairments. Therapy was focused on the following issues: phonological output lexicon , using graphemes as a source of reestablishing phonological representation; describing pictures to reinforce free recall and self-cuing word retrieval strategies; sequencing the events for language memory reinforcement, etc. Results showed improvement in confrontational naming, free recall, correct responses without priming, writing on dictation, spontaneous writing and reading comprehension.