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The procedure generally used to diagnose aphasic patients consists of classifying them in one of the classic syndromes on the basis of the analysis of their symptoms. However, this taxonomy has several important problems, the main one being that it does not take into account the variability of aphasic patients, as there are many more disorder profiles than those included in the syndromes. In order to test the homogeneity of a sample of patients diagnosed with the classic taxonomy, 15 aphasic patients (5 Broca, 5 Wernicke and 5 Conduction) and 5 healthy controls were tested with nine comprehension and production tasks. Participants were aged 38 to 81 years old. The results indicate the existence of great variability in patients labeled with the same diagnosis, as revealed by the differences in within-group scores in each task, and a limited adjustment to the expected profile, with some patients showing symptoms allegedly corresponding to other syndromes. Our results call attention to the need to study each patient individually and interpret their disorders regardless of the syndromes.

The clinical observation of a 74 year old male presenting isolated Wernicke's aphasia due to a temporal left infarction of cardiac embolic origin secondary to paroxysmal auricular flutter is described. Transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography, computerized tomography and magnetic resonance provided characteristic images which permitted the establishment of the diagnosis of lipomatous hypertrophy of the interauricular septum without requiring the use of invasive techniques. Lipomatous hypertrophy of the interauricular septum is a cardiac tumor of unusual presentation constituted of an abnormal accumulation of non-encapsulated fatty tissue which occupies a thickness greater than 15 mm of the interauricular septum. Wernicke's aphasia as a form of presentation of the lipomatous hypertrophy of the interauricular septum has not previously been described in the literature.