Anomic aphasia

Anomic aphasia
Other names	Dysnomia, nominal aphasia
Diffusion tensor imaging of the brain shows the right and left arcuate fasciculus (Raf & Laf). Also shown are the right and left superior longitudinal fasciculus (Rslf & Lslf), and tapetum of corpus callosum (Ta). Damage to the Laf is known to cause anomic aphasia.
Specialty	Neurology, neuropsychology

Anomic aphasia (also known as dysnomia, nominal aphasia, and amnesic aphasia) is a mild, fluent type of aphasia where individuals have word retrieval failures and cannot express the words they want to say (particularly nouns and verbs).^[1] By contrast, anomia is a deficit of expressive language, and a symptom of all forms of aphasia, but patients whose primary deficit is word retrieval are diagnosed with anomic aphasia.^[2] Individuals with aphasia who display anomia can often describe an object in detail and maybe even use hand gestures to demonstrate how the object is used, but cannot find the appropriate word to name the object.^[3] Patients with anomic aphasia have relatively preserved speech fluency, repetition, comprehension, and grammatical speech.