By Jess Renyard, Speech & Language Therapy Assistant
Looking back at June: Aphasia awareness month
With the arrival of July, let’s take a moment to look back to June – Aphasia Awareness Month.
Aphasia is an acquired communication disorder that impairs a person's ability to process and / or use language. It does not impact intelligence!
It is estimated that more than 350, 000 people live with aphasia in the UK (Stroke Association, 2024).
Awareness of aphasia is vital for ensuring individuals with aphasia do not feel alone, isolated, or misunderstood.
Aphasia can impact an individual’s expression or understanding of language. This can impact speech, reading, writing, and the ability to use numbers. This can impact the ability to tell the time and manage money.
Aphasia is different for everybody and can be mild, moderate, or severe. Aphasia results from damage to the language centers of the brain. This can be caused by stroke, head injury, infections and inflammations of the brain, injury/tumors to the brain and progressive neurological conditions.
Aphasia can turn life upside down, profoundly impacting everyday activities such as having a conversation, answering the phone, and watching television. Aphasia can make these incredibly difficult, frustrating and anxiety-inducing.
Speech and language therapy is the main treatment for people with aphasia. Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs) support individuals with aphasia to communicate or develop other ways to support communication.
Individuals with aphasia may have word-finding difficulties in which they have difficulty retrieving the correct word for a given scenario.
To support somebody with word-finding difficulties, you can ask them to:
- Describe the word:
- Ask them to Gesture it
- Ask them to Point to it
- Can they draw it or write the word down?
To support an individual with aphasia’s understanding, you can use total communication techniques. Total communication strategies involve everyone in the conversation by using a variety of methods to support a person's understanding of language and help an individual express their own thoughts and ideas.
Total communication strategies can decrease frustration and enable greater participation in conversations.
These include:
• Gesture - pointing, facial expression, miming, thumbs up/down, nodding/shaking head
• Drawing
• Writing - keywords or short phrases can aid understanding
• Use of relevant items - maps, pictures, photographs, newspapers, menus
• Use of communication books.
Everybody with aphasia is different; it is vital that a person-centred approach is taken.
• To optimise a conversation with an individual with aphasia, make sure your surroundings are quiet and limit distractions - turn off the television or radio so the person can hear and focus on you.
• Use closed questions, rather than open questions. For example, instead of: “What would you like to drink?” ask yes/no questions such as: “Would you like a cup of tea?” and go through the options until a decision is made.
• Speak naturally and don't raise your voice. Use short, simple sentences - but make sure not to speak down to the person you're interacting with
• Give the person plenty of time to express themselves. If they make several unsuccessful attempts to say something, offer to return to the idea later
• Admit when you don't understand what the person is trying to say - don't pretend you have understood.