How to Treat Aphasia

Aphasia is the loss of the ability to speak, listen to and read or write as a result of brain injury. Stroke is the most common cause of aphasia, but the condition can be due to traumatic brain injury, infection or tumor.

Instructions

Treat Aphasia Promptly

• 1

  Consult with a speech-language therapist. Speech-language therapy, when started promptly, can help a person affected by aphasia recover her ability to communicate. The therapist will consult with the person's physician and family, assess her abilities and goals for therapy, and design a treatment plan that may include training her to respond to images, repeat certain phrases and practice specific types of conversation.

• 2

  Discuss medication options with your doctor. A limited number of studies have examined the use of medication to treat aphasia. When combined with speech-language therapy, medications such as bromocriptine may be able help those with aphasia make modest speech gains.

• 3

  Investigate computer-assisted therapy to treat aphasia. This type of treatment may include computer programs that help people identify verbs, distinguish among specific sounds, repeat sounds or respond to a "virtual" speech-language therapist. Other Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices may include communication boards or special typewriters/keyboards.

• 4

  Educate yourself about constraint-induced (CI) therapy. Very preliminary studies suggest that CI therapy may potentially help people with aphasia. CI therapy is based on the principle that "learned" methods of compensating for impaired communication should be restricted, and other methods encouraged. With this treatment, people with aphasia who have adapted by using sounds or gestures to communicate are restricted from using these alternative methods and required to express themselves by speaking, for example.

• 5

  Relax, literally. This isn't a patronizing suggestion. Some evidence suggests that relaxation therapy that includes guided imagery, visualization and progressive muscle relaxation may aid recovery from aphasia.

• 6

  Ask your doctor about the possibility of taking donepezil. Traditionally associated with treating Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, donepezil may be able to help those with aphasia by preventing the enzyme cholinesterase from breaking down acetylcholine, a brain chemical that influences memory and other thought processes.