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Aphasia refers to an impaired ability to understand or produce speech as a result of damage to the brain, normally a stroke or traumatic brain injury. The severity of aphasia can range from a mild form, with some occasional trouble getting a word out occasionally or may be quite severe, with no verbal expression and difficulty following even simple one step commands.
SPARC Health focuses on providing expert care for rehabilitation of speech and language to individuals adapting to life with aphasia. The type of aphasia is normally determined by the area of brain that has been damaged. Broadly speaking, aphasia can be categorized as fluent or non-fluent aphasia. There are several other subtypes under these broad categories.
The presence of aphasia causes a deep impact not just on the individual suffering from aphasia but caregivers as well. A Speech therapist assessment and a speech therapy plan of treatment is imperative for an individual with aphasia.
A detailed speech therapy assessment entails assessing several aspects of language comprehension and production. These include naming skills, repetition skills, auditory comprehension abilities, fluency of speech etc. Common complaints or thoughts include:
Aphasia is treatable and years of research have equipped speech pathologists with several approaches to treat many different types of aphasia. Depending on the type of aphasia, the speech therapist may opt for Melodic Intonation Therapy, the Verb Network Strengthening Treatment for Aphasia, Constraint-Induced Language Therapy, Semantic Feature Analysis for word retrieval, etc.
It is also exciting to note that in this day and age we have so many technological support systems in the form of Augmentative & Alternative Communication devices and applications for smartphones and tablets that help support communication for the individual with a stroke as well as for carryover and generalization of learned speech and language therapy skills. To schedule a consultation or to learn more about our services, please contact at 425-242-3294 or email us at info@sparchealth.org.