Incidental diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia in the inpatient setting: A note to raise clinical awareness.

Purpose
The purpose of this report is to raise awareness among medical speech-language pathologists about challenges associated with encountering primary progressive aphasia patients in the acute hospital setting.
Method
Retrospective medical chart review.
Results
A 68-year-old woman was hospitalized for hyponatremia, pneumonia, and toxic-metabolic encephalopathy but was also noted to be suffering from chronic verbal difficulty for which medical attention was not sought previously. An interdisciplinary approach to address her verbal difficulty led to the diagnosis and initial management of a neurodegenerative disease characterized primarily by aphasia and apraxia of speech.
Conclusion
Service implementation lessons learned from this case study in terms of diagnosis and management and patient's illness experience are discussed.