What You Need to Know about Aphasia
Aphasia is a disorder resulting from damage to the portions of your brain responsible for controlling language. The disorder usually occurs suddenly and is often a result of a head injury or stroke. In a few cases, however, it develops slowly, as in cases where it results from an infection, a brain tumour, or dementia. It impairs your ability to read and write because it generally affects the understanding and expression of language. It may also co-occur with speech disorders like apraxia of speech and dysarthria, which are also potential results of brain damage.
In some cases, a person is fortunate enough to recover from aphasia even without treatment. This usually occurs if the disorder was caused by a type of stroke wherein blood flow to the brain was temporarily interrupted, but very quickly restored. This is called a transient ischemic attack, in which case your language abilities may be automatically restored within a few hours or days.
For most sufferers, however, recovery is neither as quick nor as complete. In such instances, speech-language therapy is often very helpful. You can expect recovery to continue over a period of two years or more. Most health professionals recommend starting treatment as early in the recovery period as possible for optimum effectiveness. Of course, there are several other factors that may affect the amount of improvement a sufferer experiences. Among these factors are the cause of the brain damage, the area that was affected, the extent of brain injury, and the age and overall health of the sufferer.
The main goal of aphasia therapy is to improve your ability to communicate by helping you use your remaining language abilities, restore your affected language abilities as much as possible, compensate for existing language problems, and learn other methods of communicating. You have the option of undergoing individual therapy, which focuses on your specific needs or group therapy, which gives you the opportunity to use new communication skills in a group setting. The involvement of family members is often crucial in the treatment of this disorder because it helps them recognize how best to support the sufferer.
Family members of those who suffer from aphasia are encouraged to use short and uncomplicated sentences, write down keywords to clarify their meaning whenever necessary, maintain a natural adult manner of conversation, minimize distractions, value the opinion of the sufferer and avoid correcting his speech, allow the sufferer plenty of time to speak, and encourage any type of communication. It is also important to always include the sufferer in conversations and help him become more involved in activities outside the home. Stroke clubs and other support groups may be helpful.
Other methods of treatment involve the use of computer software and multimedia to improve the language abilities of the sufferer. Aside from providing an alternative system of communication, computers can also help the sufferer retrieve certain parts of speech, like the use of verbs. Lastly, multimedia products can help aphasia sufferers in perceiving the differences between phonemes with the use of auditory discrimination exercises.
