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Post-Stroke Patients: A Case Study

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Current Communication Treatments for Post-Stroke Patients
Robbi Barnett
West Texas A&M University

Current Communication Treatments for Post-Stroke Patients According to the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association (2014), stroke is the leading cause of disability, causing 1 out of every 20 deaths in the U.S. each year. Stroke is defined as a breakup of the blood supply to the brain, usually caused by a blood clot or embolus (Dark & Sander, 2014). There are two main types of stroke, the first is ischemic, caused by a blood clot blocking a cerebral artery. The second type is hemorrhagic, which is caused by a bleeding vessel into the brain. The left hemisphere of the brain has many functions that are critical to the field of speech-language pathology. The ability to produce speech and language resides on the left side of the brain. Brain damage in this area will disrupt the individual’s ability to use their language to communicate to others. Lesions to the right hemisphere of the brain can affect the emotional comprehension of language, such as …show more content…
Some comorbid conditions, such as depression have been known to develop in addition to the loss of communication after the stroke (Welch, 2008). If the patient develops depression, it will become harder for them to contribute to therapy and restoring their ability to communicate. The length of aphasia can vary patient to patient depending on how severe the lesion is to the language area of the brain. A randomized, controlled trial performed in 2007 concluded that even though some patients will only have short-term aphasia, loss of communication, 30-43% of the patients will remain severely aphasic long-term (Bakheit et al., 2007). This statistic can increase the amount and intensity of therapy a patient may receive depending on how severe the communication disorder, or aphasia,

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