Methods of treatment of aphasia after a stroke

Stroke aphasia is a disorder caused by damage to the brain centers that realize both the perception of someone else's speech and their own articulation. There is a partial or total loss of the ability to speak. There are several types of disorders: dynamic aphasia, motor, sensory, semantic, acoustic-mnestic, acoustic-gnostic. Treatment of aphasia includes both drug therapy to prevent complications of stroke, and the restoration of speech skills through exercise.

Causes and types of aphasia

Causes of aphasia are the damage to areas of the cortex responsible for the integration of speech processes, as well as for its perception, pronunciation, memorization. The defeat of nerve cells and conduction pathways is possible with hemorrhagic and ischemic strokes, brain traumas. Depending on the localization of cerebral hemorrhage, the corresponding centers of perception of speech, its products, and also integration suffer:

• Acoustico-gnostic aphasia after a stroke is a violation in which the patient suffers both perception and his own speech. The patient ceases to understand the meaning of words. The speech of the man himself is also broken - some sounds or words are replaced by others, there is no correct agreement in the sentences. This happens when the temporal lobe of the brain is affected.
• Acoustico-mnestic aphasia is a disorder characterized by a violation of memorization of long sentences and phrases. The reason is the defeat of the temporal centers of speech. With acoustic-mnestic aphasia, patients can also replace words.
• Motor aphasia, which occurs after the defeat of the Broca center during a hemorrhage, is of two types: afferent and efferent. With afferent aphasia, a patient after a stroke can not utter sounds, becauseForgets the position of the tongue and lips to implement them. The patient can replace sounds in words, but sees his mistakes. This pathology develops with stroke in the lower-parietal regions. Efferent aphasia manifests itself in the incorrect formulation of phrases. In the written speech there are permutations of letters in the word, there may be a complete loss of writing skills. The person realizes that he speaks wrong and allows grammatical errors. Repeats phrases, strong expressions, sometimes unprintable. Perhaps inhibition of speech, but the first sentence helps to develop the following thoughts. In this case, the posterolateral and premotor cortical areas are affected.
• Dynamic aphasia is the absence of the patient's initiative in the pronunciation of phrases and words to communicate with other people. However, the patient is able to repeat after another person, to write at dictation, read aloud.
• Semantic aphasia occurs with stroke in the lower parietal region. The patient has difficulty in perceiving the values ​​of speech, idiomatic expressions, adverbs, meaning place. Phrases are short, as in dialogues.
• Sensory aphasia is a violation of the perception of sounds, the undifferentiation of similar phonemes.

Find out about the consequences of rupture of cerebral aneurysms. Possible consequences of the operation.

All about ischemia of cerebral vessels read here.

Treatment of aphasia

Treatment of aphasia after a stroke includes classes with a speech therapist, as well as medical therapy to protect the surviving cells from necrosis, massage of the collar zone, physiotherapy. Necessary thorough rehabilitation with the help of relatives.

For the restoration of cognitive function of the brain, nootropic drugs are prescribed, as well as medications that improve the blood circulation of the brain and increase its resistance to hypoxia. They use Cavinton, Cytoflavin, Cerebrolysin. B vitamins are also needed.

Needle reflexotherapy for relaxation and improvement of cerebral circulation is indicated. Sometimes stem cell transplantation is used to restore cognitive functions. The main strategy of treatment for aphasia is training and recovery of lost at a hemorrhage of skills of written and oral speech.

It is necessary to begin classes with a speech therapist as soon as possible, no later than two weeks after the onset of the first symptoms. The duration of lessons on speech restoration should be about 7-15 minutes, because the patient's condition requires rest. Gradually, the duration of rehearsals can be increased. It should also be ensured that during the training there are no extraneous sound stimuli. This is very distracting to a person with aphasia during stroke, the logopedic material for classes is presented below.

The first lessons are best spent under the supervision of a doctor in a hospital. It is important to support the patient morally, to strengthen his enthusiasm and faith in his own strength. Watching TV should not take more than two hours a day. And the transfer should adjust the patient to a positive mood.

Do you know how motor speech impairments occur in children? The main manifestations of pathology.

All about the causes and consequences of hemorrhagic stroke read here.

What is ischemic disease of the brain you will learn from this article http: //golmozg.ru/zabolevanie/ ishemicheskaya-bolezn-golovnogo-mozga.html. Treatment and prevention of pathology.

Exercises

The task for patients after a stroke is to develop the muscles involved in speech. Exercises for the muscles of the tongue and lips:

• Pull out the lips in the form of a tube, then relax them. Repeat four times. The time between rest and exercise is about 5 seconds.
• Lick alternately the upper and lower lips.
• Touch the upper teeth.
• Try to lay down the tongue with a tube, put it on its side.
• Blow up your cheeks.

Recommendation! Since a person most often remembers the name of everyday objects around him. It's better to start with them. With sensory aphasia, when the patient confuses similar sounds, you need to use pictures. Let the person show the image of the subject named by the tutor. For example, you can say the word "barrel", and ask to show on the picture a kidney and a barrel to choose from.

To restore the written speech, you can start the workout by inserting the missing letter. Exercise should be extremely simple. After training with the utterance of words, one can proceed to word combinations and simple sentences. Pronouns and nouns are the most important parts of speech.

In the treatment of dynamic aphasia for the development of communication skills, it is necessary to suggest a word to the patient or a seeding phrase from which he can begin communication. It is also necessary to read aloud, a dictation letter. The basis for the treatment of aphasia is a speech therapist. It is better to start them as early as possible for easier correction of speech deficiencies.