Assessment of Aphasia
➢ Many standardized tests available
➢ Initially often screening tools used or informal assessment
• Provides basic information on the patient’s language abilities
• Enables therapist/ team to pitch communication at the level in which the patient understands
or can express |
1. General information
• Obtain medical history
• Obtain history from the patient or significant other
• Determine the patient’s primary language
• Determine hearing status and visual acuity
• Determine the patient’s pre-morbid language abilities & educational level
• Determine the patient’s cognitive function |
2. Language comprehension
• Does the patient appear to follow the conversation?
• Can they follow 1, 2, 3 -step commands
• Do they comprehend Yes/No questions reliably?
– Are you in the hospital?
– Do helicopters eat their young?
• Do they understand gestures or non-verbal communication
• Reading comprehension |
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3. Expressive language
• Conversational speech
– Fluent?
– Comprehensible?
– Slow or laboured?
– Words or sentences?
– Paraphasias?
• Naming:
– Confrontation: What’s this?
– Associative: Pen and___, table and __
– Responsive: Where do you buy milk?
– Using names: Who is the Prime Minister?
• Can the person write?
– Own name, address, letters of the alphabet/ numbers, names of objects etc.
– In sentences?
→ SLP notes spelling errors/ substitutions/ omissions
- Observations
- Getting ideas to figure out the type of aphasia the client has |
Treatment of Aphasia
Factors to consider: |
▪ Type and severity of impairment |
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▪ Motivation |
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▪ Medical needs/ condition |
Treatments either: |
▪ Restorative |
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▪ Compensatory |
Goals of therapy:
1. maximize recovery of impaired function
2. assist in the development of communication strategies
3. help the patient adjust to the residual deficits of the brain injury
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Restorative Approaches
Aim to recover skills |
use intact abilities to communicate |
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cortical reorganisation of damaged hemisphere |
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increased involvement of undamaged areas |
Treatment of auditory comprehension and spoken language |
directly stimulate specific listening, speaking, reading and writing skills |
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single word, sentence, and paragraph level |
Broad number of techniques |
Visual Action Therapy, Melodic Intonation Therapy, Constraint-induced therapy |
Trigger new neurons to act and stimulate these skills
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Compensatory Approaches
➢ Restorative Approaches may not be appropriate because of the severity of the disorder
➢ Train the individual to use any means to communicate
▪ new or different ways of completing a task
▪ lessen the impact of their communication difficulty
→ e.g. AAC/ communication apps, writing or drawing etc.
➢ Focusing on communication & participation rather than on recovery of speech alone
➢ Helping significant others adjust to a new communication style
➢ Compensate for the inability to restore old skills |
Communication Dos & Don’ts
➢ Talk to the person as an adult
➢ Simplify sentence structure & reduce your rate of speech
! but keep speech adult-like
➢ Minimize or eliminate background noise
➢ Make sure you have the person’s attention before communicating
➢ Encourage and use all modes of communication
▪ Speech/ writing/ drawing / yes-no response
➢ Give them time to talk & permit a reasonable amount of time to respond
➢ Don’t finish sentences for the person with aphasia
➢ Accept all communication attempts
➢ Keep trying
➢ They need to do it if they want to trigger these changes in the brain so don’t finish word for them |
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