Medical Xpress revealed the ability of acalculia to negatively affect human life
Numbers surround a person everywhere, but there is acalculia, a neuropsychological disorder in which the ability to process and perceive them is impaired. This disease is common in people who have suffered a stroke or brain injury. Estimates show that 30% to 60% of stroke survivors suffer from acalculia. This is reported by the Medical Xpress magazine.
People wake up with an alarm clock, check the air temperature before going outside, count vitamins or pills to take before meals, and estimate the amount of time needed to reach their destination. Being able to perform such simple calculations and estimates using numbers makes life possible, so acalculia can have a devastating impact.
The brain is a complex organ that controls both human movements and sensations. It allows you to receive signals from the environment, process information, and perform motor actions. However, a stroke or brain injury disrupts the blood supply. If this happens on the left side of the brain, there may be problems with language processing and other cognitive functions such as memory.
It can also affect the movement of the right side of the body — if a stroke has occurred on the right side of the brain, the left side of the body will suffer. Among other things, cognitive impairments may occur, most often related to the processing of visual information.
However, acalculia can occur regardless of which part of the brain has been damaged. This is because processing numbers and performing calculations occur in various areas of the brain, including the left hemisphere, which helps process language, the right hemisphere, which is involved in processing spatial information, the back of the brain, which is responsible for perceiving the magnitude of numbers (for example, which of two numbers is greater), and the front of the brain., which monitors executive functions.
Damage to these areas, respectively, can cause problems with processing numbers. Sometimes the problems may be superficial, but people with acalculia may feel that they know a number and cannot pronounce it out loud, or they may try to write or pronounce one number, but they give out a completely different one. In severe cases, patients may completely lose the meaning of numbers.
In order to understand the impact of acalculia on daily life, interviews were conducted with people suffering from this disease and with their caregivers. The goal was to find out how this condition affects life and what kind of support these people receive.
Stroke survivors and acalculia sufferers reported that they could not manage their money. Some respondents spoke about the need to rely on guardians to control money or help with access to online banking, as they could not independently cope with typical questions such as a request to enter the third character of a PIN code.
They also noted difficulties with taking medications — many rely entirely on a pharmacist. Against the background of this disease, it has become more difficult for people to cope with everyday life. For example, it was difficult to tell the time because of the numbers. Even using a microwave oven caused difficulties. According to one of the participants, cooking time is a real mess with numbers.
Most importantly, acalculia has a devastating effect on human independence and well-being. Another participant in the study shared that he felt stupid, embarrassed and upset.
The results showed how strongly acalculia affects the independence and quality of life of survivors of stroke and brain injury. The disease left some people unable to return to work, and many were unable to live independently or cope with daily life, making them vulnerable. The study also revealed important gaps in how this disorder is currently assessed and treated.
According to the publication, every fourth person over the age of 25 is at risk of experiencing a stroke. Despite the fact that people are becoming better equipped to help others recover from a stroke, acalculia remains insufficiently studied in rehabilitation. This disease is not checked after a stroke (despite the availability of several specialized tests), and currently there are no clinically tested treatments.
Currently, acalculia is not taught in clinical programs. One of the patients recalled how he asked his therapists to help with the disease, asking what they could do to help with math. The therapist, in turn, replied that he could not help because this issue was not part of their training. This means that health workers cannot recognize the problem, let alone support such patients.
People with acalculia are currently left to self-help. Many people may not even know that there is a name for their condition. Obviously, in line with this, more efforts are needed to raise awareness so that the disease can be better assessed and patients can receive the necessary help and support to overcome acalculia.
Earlier, on October 2, Alyona Mazina, Candidate of Psychological Sciences, psychophysiologist, neuropsychologist, told Izvestia that the main difficulty of people with dyslexia is related to the peculiarities of the brain structures responsible for recognizing letters — converting graphemes into sounds and synchronizing visual and speech analysis. According to the expert, reading slows down, becomes ragged, and letters and syllables get confused and can change places.
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