This text is a synthesis of the Master’s Final Project carried out by Jina Castillo Viscaino, a student of the Master’s in Learning Difficulties at ISEP on ‘The importance of human communication in the face of a neurological event’. You can consult the full text here to analyze everything in more detail.
Communication in Patients with Neurological Impairments
Communication is the genesis and/or the basis for social interaction, expressing our emotions, feelings of pleasure and displeasure, points of view, in the face of any event or causality, regardless of how we can carry it out, and even more so if there is a neurological impairment. Therefore, it is essential to carry out excellent therapeutic work in patients who have suffered strokes, cerebrovascular accidents (CVA), and/or cerebral hemorrhages, regardless of the medical prognosis, and who may present with expressive and/or receptive aphasia, implying the loss or deterioration of previously possessed communicative ability, which is caused by a lesion in the Central Nervous System, and is often one of the consequences of acquired brain injury.
Difficulties in People with Neurological Damage
People with aphasia may have difficulty expressing themselves and being understood, following a conversation, or understanding what is said to them, or simply problems with reading and writing. People with brain damage may also have problems with: speech organs, deficits in any of the feeding phases; producing dysphagia; attention, memory, or executive functions may also be altered, as well as mental processing, planning of daily activities or tasks they have always performed. To carry out an adequate intervention, it is essential to know all the difficulties a person with aphasia may present, to know their current state, the characteristics they present, and to carry out a comprehensive evaluation that allows us to address all their needs and, therefore, achieve the best progress with the aim of favoring their communicative environment, which will be our main objective, and maximizing all our patient’s capacities.
The Role of the Speech Therapist in a Patient with Neurological Damage
The speech therapist’s work with a patient with neurological damage will be aimed at maintaining preserved abilities and/or recovering or intervening in those aspects that are affected in relation to communication (voice, speech, and language) or myofunctional alterations that involve processes such as breathing, swallowing, or chewing. This is why it is fundamental to raise awareness of the speech therapist’s role in rehabilitation after a neurological event, because we are the professionals responsible for ensuring communicative well-being.
The speech therapist can intervene in various pathologies caused by ABI, addressing many areas that are significant for the patient’s quality of life, including: voice, feeding, language, communicative skills, among others. Therefore, it is essential to emphasize the importance of the work we perform.
Advantages of Speech Therapy
Regardless of the time of the event or occurrence for the patient with ABI, if they continue to engage in learning that reactivates neural connections, they will have greater speed in information processing, be more agile, more articulate, have a greater capacity for reaction, improved executive functions, improved long-term and short-term memory, among other abilities that can be addressed and enhanced in an older adult or someone who has had an ABI. No one is harmed by receiving stimulation; what is harmful and irreversible is not receiving the necessary and timely attention.
The Master’s in Clinical Speech Therapy in Neurological Damage
ISEP offers the Master’s in Clinical Speech Therapy in Neurological Damage, which is intimately related to the role of neurological speech therapists in patients with neurological damage. Don’t hesitate to ask for more information!