What are the symptoms of a frontal lobe stroke?

What is a stroke?

A stroke is a condition that disrupts the blood supply to any part of the brain or can be caused by bleeding in the brain. Frontal lobe strokes can cause changes in personality, decision-making, language skills, and self-control.

Symptoms of a frontal lobe stroke

Frontal lobe strokes can cause a variety of symptoms, which often range from weakness to loss of motivation. For this reason, symptoms can be divided into four groups as follows.

Movement symptoms:

• Weakness on one side of the body facing a stroke.
• Reveal primary reflexes such as sucking reflex, grasping reflex.
• Imitate other people's facial expressions without stopping.
• The repetition of a movement does not stop.
• Loss of will.
• Loss of gait control.
• Urinary incontinence.

Speech and language

• Broca's aphasia (also called expressive aphasia) (when a stroke affects the hemisphere of the brain that governs language).

Consciousness and wisdom

• Loss of fluency, often hesitation, mood swings.
• Difficulty solving problems (goal-oriented behavior) in different areas of cognition including psycholinguistics, deduction, logic, and arithmetic.

Behavior and personality

• A complete lack of creativity and motivation.
• Make comments that do not conform to society's standards.
• Uncomfortable.
• Careless and indifferent.
• Inappropriate obstinacy and repetition of certain behaviors.

What doctors have found about this disease

Language Creation

The lower left frontal gyrus is one of the most important brain regions for creative expression of language. This area will be active when normal people do a word-guessing test when given a few letters in advance, for example you are told the three words "go-" in advance, and you have to guess what this word is. . This area usually doesn't work when you're dealing with a language as simple as reading text.

While stroke patients have initial difficulty with language creation, many recover within 6 to 12 months.

Neurologist Maurizio Corbetta and his team at the University of Washington found that there are two mechanisms for recovery, according to a 2000 report in Science Daily. When the entire left lower frontal gyrus is damaged, the corresponding right brain area takes over the task of the left side. When there is a small lesion, the area of ​​the left brain surrounding the lesion begins to perform the functions of the damaged area.

Decision making

Strokes that affect the prefrontal cortex in the frontal lobe can adversely affect decision-making, says neurologist Antonio Damasio of the University of Southern California. The prefrontal cortex is intimately connected with what neurologists call “executive functions.” These include choosing among many alternatives, comparing short- and long-term benefits, making judgments, and controlling desires.

In her research, Damasio focused on the effects of stroke and cancer in an area of ​​the prefrontal cortex called the "medial frontal gyrus." Patients with severe damage in this area are able to perform reasonably well on tests of logic but cannot make simple decisions.

In a 2009 interview for “Discover” magazine, Damasio said that when he asked a patient to choose one of two dates for the next appointment. Over the next 30 minutes the patient went through the pros and cons of having to choose one date over the other. Despite his good reasoning, he still couldn't seem to decide and was only relieved when Damasio finally made the choice on his behalf.

The ability to handle multiple tasks in a period of time and the ability to control yourself

A stroke in the right frontal region can affect self-control when multitasking, says neurologist Tim Hodgson of the University of Exeter. Hodgson and his colleagues tested patients with both left and right frontal strokes in a multi-tasking test, according to a 2007 report in Medical Newa Today. Patients with damaged right brain often do not realize their mistakes more often than those with damaged left brain. Hodgson points out that people who have had a stroke in the right frontal region may have less difficulty with language than people who have had a stroke in the left front, but they will also have difficulty performing daily activities. need self-control when handling multiple tasks at once,