What is Aphasia Therapy?

What is Aphasia?

Aphasia is when a person has difficulties with their language (understanding, speaking, reading and/or writing) typically as a result of a stroke or brain injury.

What is Aphasia therapy?

Typically, Aphasia Therapy starts with an assessment of your language. Language can be complex so its important for us to identify your strengths, in order to improve the areas you find difficult. We used standardised communication Aphasia assessments that assess understanding, talking, reading and writing. We discuss the results of these assessments to help you and your loved ones understand your communication difficulties. We provide advice on the best ways to support communication.

Why is Goal setting important in Aphasia therapy?

Many of us set goals in our lives. It might be on new years day when we set a goal to stop eating quite so much chocolate, during sport or part of our working lives. Following a stroke, goals are shown to improve motivation and mood.

Goal setting is a process when we get to know what is important to you as a person, what you might be finding difficult and the impact of your Aphasia. We can involve partners in this process to make it easier. These goals might be remembering family names, using the phone to order a taxi or writing emails. We are all individuals and our goals are unique to each of us.

What is the best therapy for Aphasia?

There are two types of Aphasia Therapy – Impairment and Functional therapy. Impairment based therapy is usually repeated exercises based on your goals, using paper resources or apps. Functional therapy is the focus on real life goals that reflects your everyday communication interactions with others. This might involve training family members in supportive communication skills. It is important to work on both aspects to support your communication.

Does Aphasia improve with therapy?

The treatment for Aphasia is with Speech and Language Therapy. Research shows that Speech Therapy is effective for people with Aphasia following a stroke, compared to no therapy. Research also shows that Aphasia Therapy Online is as effective as face-to-face Aphasia Therapy. You or your family member need to understand to be able to engage in online therapy - we can discuss this further in the free consultation.

How can you help someone with Aphasia?

After an assessment, a Speech Therapist will be able to give you specific advice about the best ways in which to communicate.

Below is some general guidance:  

• Give the person plenty of time to respond. If a person with Aphasia feels rushed or pressured to speak they may become anxious, which can affect their ability to communicate.

• Use short, uncomplicated sentences.

• Do not change the topic of conversation too quickly.

• Avoid finishing a person's sentences or correcting their errors.

• Reduce distractions.

• If you don't understand something a person with Aphasia is trying to communicate, don't pretend you understand.

• Use visual references, such as pointing, gesturing and objects, to support their understanding.

• If they're having difficulty finding the right word, prompt them – ask them to describe the word, think of a similar word, try to visualise it, think of the sound the word starts with, try to write the word, use gestures, or point to an object.

Our Speech and Language Therapists are Clinical Specialists in Aphasia. Arrange a free 15 minute consultation or email thespeechnetwork@hotmail.com

Can Dysarthria be treated?

Dysarthria is the medical term for slurred speech. Speech Therapy Treatment for Dyarthria depends on the cause of the Dysarthria. If Dysarthria is caused by a stroke or head injury, it can improve with Speech Therapy. If it caused by a neurological disorder, that worsens over time (a progressive disorder), such as Motor Neurone Disease, it is likely to get worse. However, in these circumstances, Speech Therapy can also support you with strategies and assistive devices.

For Dysarthria due to Parkinson’s disease, there are recommended intensive treatments called Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT LOUD) or Speak out! We have trained and certified clinicians that can provide both treatments.

What Assessments do you use in Dysarthria?

We typically start treatment with a standardised assessment for Dysarthria. These assessments look at different aspects of your speech such as your breath support for speech, volume, intonation, voice and how clear your speech is to a listener. It is important to complete an assessment to identify the areas that are impacting on your speech so that we can focus on improving these specific impairments.

What is Goal setting in Dysarthria?

We discuss with you how your Dysarthria is impacting on your day-to-day life and set personal meaningful goals to improve your speech. Goal setting is proven to improve motivation for therapy and mood. These goals will be realistic, achievable and will be reviewed after a short block of therapy.

Dysarthria Therapy may include

-       Working with you and your loved ones to make communication easier

-       Exercises focusing on improving the clarity of your speech

-       Alternative ways of communication to support your speech

-       Biofeedback of recordings to raise your awareness of your speech

Our Speech and Language Therapists are Clinical Specialists in Dysarthria & Voice treatments. Arrange a free 15 minute consultation or email thespeechnetwork@hotmail.com

How can a Speech and Language Therapist help with dysphagia?

What is dysphagia?

Dysphagia is the medical name for swallowing difficulties.

 What are the symptoms of dysphagia?

Signs of swallowing difficulties when eating and drinking are coughing, a wet voice, foods sticking in the throat, holding food in the mouth or difficulty chewing.

 What are the risks of dysphagia?

People may have recurrent chest infections, weight loss or become dehydrated.

Who does dysphagia affect?

It can affect people with a neurological diagnosis such as a stroke, multiple sclerosis and following head injuries. It can also affect people with head and neck cancer. 

How can Speech and Language Therapy help dysphagia?

Speech and Language Therapy can help by

• Changing the foods and fluids people drink to be safer and/or more comfortable.

•  Improving the swallow through rehabilitation exercises.

• Recommending specialist cups or straws

• Providing training to family members and clients.

Our Speech and Language Therapists are Clinical Specialists in Dysphagia. We are trained in Videofluoroscopy ( a swallow assessment using x-rays) and FEES ( a swallow assessment by endoscopy). We are additionally trained in the McNeil Dysphagia Therapy Program for chronic Dysphagia.

What is a cognitive communication disorder?

What is a cognitive communication disorder?

A cognitive communication disorder is a difficulty with communication caused by cognition rather than language or speech difficulties.

What causes a cognitive communication disorder?

Cognitive communication disorders occur due to damage to the brain as a result of a stroke, brain injury or any neurological disorder. It can affect someone’s cognitive processes including attention, memory and reasoning.

How do cognitive difficulties affect communication?

Cognitive difficulties are reflected in a person's communication. They may not be affected by all of the items below but you may recognise elements that you might be able to support with the guidance given.

Attention: A person’s ability to concentrate may be affected by difficulties maintaining attention. This may cause them to miss important information in a conversation.

What can you do to help someone with attention difficulties?

• Reduce distractions such as turning off the radio or television to talk in a quiet environment so they can concentrate.
• One task at a time
• Gain the persons attention before beginning an important conversation
• Give information in shorter chunks .
• Take frequent breaks when tired.

Memory: A person’s ability to remember things that have happened recently (short-term memory) and sometimes longer term. They may repeat information or be unable to recall things that have happened to them earlier in the day.

What can you do to help someone with memory problems?

• It doesn't always help to ask them questions about things that have happened recently – most people find this distressing and it will not help their memory. Give them the information and comfort them.
• Use familiar objects such as photos on your phone or a newspaper to share information together
• Talk about the past if they are able to remember as this is not reliant on short-term memory.
• Ask family and friends to write in a book and this can be used as a conversation starter of who has visited and what you may have talked about together.
• Use memory aids such as a diary and apps on phones for reminders

Reasoning/problem solving skills: A person’s ability to think through and solve a problem may be affected leading them to make poor decisions.

How to help with poor reasoning:

• break down the problem
• brainstorm solutions together
• talk about the positives or negatives of each solution
• pick a solution
• talk about what happened.

It might be that someone is unable to discuss their decisions – and they may be reliant on others to support them in making decisions in their best interest. This often involves an assessment of capacity if it is a big decision about their life. A team of professionals is normally involved in these decisions, with the patient and family.

Other aspects of cognition that are affected:

Insight: A person’s ability to understand their limitations. An example of poor insight might be a person that has a left sided weakness and are at risk of falling but they still think that they can walk by themselves.

Slowed information processing: People might find it difficult to keep up with a conversation and feel overloaded with information.

Impaired social communication skills:
When a person may not recognise ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ ways of communicating with others. This means that they sometimes are seen as rude or passive.

• Turn taking skills: talking over someone, interrupting, talking only about themselves or not starting conversations
• Not understanding body language
• Being sexually explicit or swearing lots.

What can a speech therapist do for cognitive communication disorder?

We assess using cognitive communication assessments and gather information about the person themselves to ensure we are providing patient-centered and motivating therapy to improve the persons communication and support to family members.

What is Aphasia?

 How is aphasia caused?

 Aphasia is caused by damage to the language areas of the brain. In most people, this is typically the left hand side of the brain. It is most commonly caused by a stroke or a brain injury. It can also be caused by progressive disorders such as brain tumors.

How does aphasia affects communication?

 It can affect a persons understanding, speaking, reading and writing. Symptoms can vary in severity from people not being able to express themselves by any means, to milder symptoms of a delay in accessing words. However, even mild symptoms can have an impact on peoples confidence requiring Speech Therapy.

Does aphasia go away?

 It depends on the cause and severity of the aphasia. If it is caused by a brain injury and stroke, it is likely to improve. If it is caused by a progressive disorder this is means that it will unfortunately not improve.

Can aphasia be cured?

Speech therapy aims to restore a persons language through exercises but also support them

Can Aphasia be treated?

The treatment for Aphasia is with Speech and Language Therapy. Evidence shows that Speech Therapy is effective for people with Aphasia following a stroke, compared to no therapy.

How can you help someone with Aphasia?

After an assessment, a Speech Therapist will be able to give you specific advice about the best ways in which to communicate.

Below is some general guidance:  

• Give the person plenty of time to respond. If a person with Aphasia feels rushed or pressured to speak they may become anxious, which can affect their ability to communicate.

• Use short, uncomplicated sentences.

• Do not change the topic of conversation too quickly.

• Avoid finishing a person's sentences or correcting their errors.

• Reduce distractions.

• If you don't understand something a person with Aphasia is trying to communicate, don't pretend you understand.

• Use visual references, such as pointing, gesturing and objects, to support their understanding.

• If they're having difficulty finding the right word, prompt them – ask them to describe the word, think of a similar word, try to visualise it, think of the sound the word starts with, try to write the word, use gestures, or point to an object.

Our Speech and Language Therapists are Specialists in Aphasia. Feel free to book a free consultation or email us for further information.