This text is a summary of the Master’s Final Project carried out by María Isabel Torres Bernal, a student of ISEP’s Master’s in Learning Difficulties, on ‘Logopedic Intervention in a Case of Aphasia‘. If you wish to read her full Master’s final project, you can consult the complete text here.
Presentation of the aphasia case
In my master’s final project, I chose to define the therapy for a case of Broca’s aphasia, also called expressive or motor aphasia, as it has been one of the cases I have worked on that has helped me the most to truly understand what Clinical Speech Therapy in Brain Injury entails.
As a summary of this practical case of aphasia, I must mention that my subject, T, is a 78-year-old woman who woke up one morning two years ago unable to communicate, and with severe movement limitations on the right side of her body. After being evaluated by the Stroke unit at Hospital Virgen de la Arrixaca in Murcia, she was transferred to a ward three days later with the following diagnosis: “hematoma in the left basal ganglia of probable hypertensive origin in an anticoagulated patient with acenocoumarol”. After ten days on the ward, she was discharged and began rehabilitation at the same hospital, until a year later when she was referred to the center where I did my internship and was able to meet her.
Objectives and logopedic intervention in a case of aphasia
At this center, three main objectives are worked on with her:
- Enhance spatio-temporal orientation
- Increase expressive vocabulary
- Improve facial mobility on the right side
Given the aphasia case, the work was carried out as follows:
In this patient’s case, one of her preserved abilities is word repetition, so the exercises were based on her finally repeating the correct option after visual stimulation and the first response, whether evoked by her or facilitated by me.
Methodology applied to the aphasia case
Furthermore, the overall methodology carried out throughout the sessions was repetitive, especially with activities that required greater effort from her. It was found that each time she repeated the material of an activity, the results were better. Despite this, small variations were always attempted to stimulate her performance and prevent her from getting bored. In relation to the intervention strategies used, the first sessions began with work through visual stimulation, performing most of the exercises orally.
In speech therapy rehabilitation, the results were not as fast and visible as in other areas. The progress that subjects achieve in physiotherapy is more evident, for example. However, in speech therapy intervention, it is slower.
Many subjects affected by aphasia achieve some progress over months, or even years. Therefore, it is necessary to motivate both the patient and their family members at all times, showing them the progress being made, no matter how small. This way, they will see the importance of the intervention and it will be a greater motivation for more progress to be made each time.
The Master’s in Clinical Speech Therapy in Neurological Damage
ISEP offers the Master’s in Clinical Speech Therapy in Neurological Damage, which is closely related to the role of neurological speech therapists in patients with neurological damage. Don’t hesitate to ask for more information!