Symptoms

Primary progressive aphasia symptoms vary, depending on which portion of the brain's language areas are involved. The condition has three types, which cause different symptoms.

Semantic variant primary progressive aphasia

Signs and symptoms include:

• Difficulty comprehending spoken or written language, particularly single words
• Trouble comprehending word meanings
• Struggling to name objects

Logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia

Signs and symptoms include:

• Difficulty retrieving words and word substitutions
• Frequently pausing in speech while searching for words
• Difficulty repeating phrases or sentences

Nonfluent-agrammatic variant primary progressive aphasia

Signs and symptoms include:

• Poor grammar in written and spoken form
• Trouble understanding complex sentences
• Using grammar incorrectly
• May be accompanied by speaking problems such as errors in speech sounds (known as apraxia of speech)