Imagine waking one day realizing you suddenly don't know the language everyone speaks about. Or maybe you do, but the wrong word comes out whenever you try to talk – or worse, you can't speak at all.
That's what it's like for a person who had a stroke. Communication is like a wall between you if you are caring for someone recovering from a stroke. Connecting with them is quite a struggle, even if they can think clearly.
More than half of stroke survivors experience their speech being affected. This impacts the ability to communicate effectively because it affects speech-related motor abilities or cognitive language skills. However, treatment can improve speech problems after a stroke over time.
There are many ways to regain communication skills after losing them because of a stroke.
According to a study of about 90,000 stroke survivors, 64% of them experience speech problems after a stroke. Individuals may experience one or more conditions depending on the affected area of the brain.
This condition is characterized by difficulty producing and understanding speech due to damage to the cognitive language skills. People with aphasia can produce speech but struggle to understand language. This condition can also affect the ability to read and write.
Different types of aphasia can be categorized by the following:
This happens when nerve damage results in incoordination, weakness, and abnormal muscle tone, including speaking. It may affect people, making them sound like they are mumbling or slurring their words.
Dysarthria occurs when brain or nerve damage results in weakness, incoordination, and/or abnormal tone of the muscles involved in speaking. This may cause individuals with dysarthria to sound like they are slurring their words or mumbling.
Symptoms of dysarthria:
Dysarthria is considered a motor speech disorder, unlike aphasia. It may result from damage in different areas, such as the cerebellum, pons, corona radiata, or those within or surrounding the motor cortex.
The brain has to tell the muscles involved with muscles how to move for a person to speak. However, people with this condition have this message disrupted on its way to the brain. Thus, a person doesn't have accurate, voluntary control of the speech-related muscles.
People with apraxia of speech know what to say but often have difficulty producing desired sounds for specific words.
Symptoms of apraxia of speech:
Apraxia of speech is also a disorder in motor speech, like dysarthria. Aphasia and apraxia of speech often occur together, making communication more difficult.
Rehabilitation techniques for treatment vary depending on the type of language difficulty. This is why it is important to work with specialists to help with the survivor's diagnosis and treatment plan
Rehabilitation as soon after a stroke is the best and preferable time to start. Therapists can help in many ways in treating various communication problems, like helping people relearn their skills, teaching people to use communication tools, and teaching exercises to build strength in tongue and mouth muscles.
Rehabilitative treatments for speech therapy vary depending on the type of speech problem. Below are some common techniques and exercises used to help people improve their speech after a stroke.
Speech problems after having a stroke affect many language and speech functions, which makes it hard for survivors to communicate effectively.
You can't predict how a person will recover from a stroke, but communication problems usually improve naturally over weeks and months. The brain can often adapt and pick up new skills to compensate for some of its loss.
It is best to work with a speech-language pathologist to discover the most effective exercises and techniques. Through consistent practice, there is always hope for regaining speech and language skills after a stroke.
