Shari’s husband, Dick, has conduction aphasia. Realizing that 3 hours of therapy a week wasn’t cutting it, they came for intensive aphasia therapy. Dick’s writing, spelling, willingness to speak and ability to have a conversation changed as a result of his intensive therapy experience, which improves their quality of life.
And the approach at The Aphasia Center is totally unique compared to all of the speech therapy and therapists that Dick has had so far. One hour three times a week is certainly not as effective as the intense program that we have at The Aphasia Center.
Plus, just looking at words, reading words, that isn’t what helped Dick. It was the reading, the writing, the saying, the writing, the reading, the saying, and the repetition that has helped him.
I started doing research and searching for options. I knew nothing about strokes. I knew nothing about the impact it has on the body and the functions, so I started to do as much research and try to inform myself to get the best possible challenges for him to improve, because the quality of my life depends upon the quality of his, so I wanted to do whatever was possible. We heard from many quarters that if you don’t do it in the first year you’re not going to have any success but i have also heard now that it doesn’t matter, there is some success in successive years following the stroke.
My goal before we actually got to the facility and I learned about their procedure was that he would increase in conversation. That has not come as easily. I feel that it probably will come with more time, but he is able to communicate through writing, which he could not do before, he is able to communicate with spelling, he was not able to do before. he can use a tablet he was not interested in using any kind of a keyboard. Those are all huge in our ability to communicate with one another.
Plus, I was just hoping that the two of us could be able to have more meaningful conversations there is much more spontaneous conversation coming from Dick and willingness to speak. I’m not sure what people looking at the video can afford. Whatever you can afford you need to go and find an intensive program. That seems to be the only way that has improved Dick’s ability to speak. The expertise located in this particular facility is astounding, their understanding of the brain is astounding, and if at all you are able to come this direction, I would highly recommend it.