Jamie came all the way from Wales for intensive aphasia therapy. Living alone, he had difficulty communicating with friends, family and former co-workers. While he spoke in 1-2 words at a time, understanding exactly what Jamie was talking about took time. After spending 8 weeks at The Center, Jamie used a variety of strategies to communicate. He also began speaking in longer sentences to communicate his thoughts. With a desire to return to work, Jamie came back to The Aphasia Center for continued therapy.
My name is Abdul Seckam and I’m from Cardiff, Wales. Being from the UK it’s been very difficult to find a place like The Aphasia Center where they have experts to deal with people that have been having a stroke, and have had the expertise in just a block program of aphasia treatment. And also where you have therapists that basically just deal with patients that have strokes.
But going to an Aphasia Center where you have that opportunity to help your loved one or your friend is actually amazing, because you actually see progress and you start to communicate in ways that you would never, ever imagine. In terms of how I’ve looked after one of my friends with aphasia, it started off with one or two words, but within 2 months saying whole sentences like, “I would like to go shopping” whereas before they would use one word such as, “shopping”. It’s an amazing experience, but at the same time it’s a very emotional experience not only for the patient themselves or for the person that has aphasia, but also for the caregiver.
I think the goals that the family and my friend had was to communicate better with people, with his work colleagues, and with his family as opposed to just using those 1-2 words. When, after the intense treatment, I can see the difference because it’s not that he’s using 1-2 words he’s using whole sentences.
It’s not only the fact that he came here with the goal of wanting to speak better, but he’s learned a whole new set of skills that he can take back and he can use to communicate with not only his family and his friends, but with people in general.
Absolutely, The Aphasia Center is amazing. It’s an option that I feel in the UK we don’t have this wonderful intense program with amazing experts in the field of aphasia, and also the wonderful staff at The Aphasia Center that make this such a wonderful transition not only for the caregiver, but also for the client – the aphasia client at the center. I would recommend anybody to come here, especially if they’re looking for an option where they’re going to help their loved one.