Aphasia from a TBI - Roseanne’s daughter, Mary, has completed two sessions of intensive aphasia therapy. The structured, 5 hour a day setting has helped Mary with social skills, acquiring new vocabulary and expanding her conversation and word-finding. Roseanne recommends that families are aggressive with their therapies for best results.
What has brought you guys to do intensive aphasia therapy?
Well, part time aphasia therapy is not really available where we are, but it does not nearly benefit her like full-time intensive aphasia therapy does. Every time we’ve done intensive full time therapy we’ve seen outcomes, good outcomes. Mary seems to thrive on structure, schedule, she can be very driven if she has a schedule to follow and she so thrives on that. She does very well with a structured environment. So it’s been good for her.
Have you seen any specific changes since she’s been here for this session?
I don’t know how to say anything specifically but she just seems to be. Her vocabulary is always growing and I like that she’s stretching out instead of just having just one word she’s trying to put together sentences and phrases. She works hard at that and she’s been working at that for a while but I think I see some improvements there.
What have you learned about aphasia or about her recovery through intensive?
I’ve done a lot of reading about the brain and how it works and aphasia, what it is. I’ve just learned that in my experience, I think being aggressive with therapy and continuing to challenge and pull and push seems to help.