Treatment Flashcards
Treatment of Aphasia
Stages of Recovery
Early Stages: 1-3 months-coincides with the period of spontaneous recovery
Late Stages: months to years after injury
Service Delivery Contexts
Acute Care Hospitals Acute Rehabilitation Centers Skilled Nursing Facilities Long-term Care Centers Home Outpatient Centers
Prognosis for Recovery
Initial aphasia severity is the most important factor for predicting recovery
Not lesion size but the extent of involvement in specific areas that best predicts recovery
Age and recovery-probably health is most predictive
Gender-no evidence strongly favoring either
Handedness-no evidence strongly favoring either
Team intervention with a patient (and family) centered emphasis
Physician Nurse Case Managers Pharmacists Dieticians Neuropsychologists Occupational Therapists Physical Therapists Speech-Language Pathologists Support Personnel (COTA, PTAs SLP-A, Nursing Assistants)
Traditional Intervention Approaches
1. Stimulation Approach
Most widely used treatment approach
Hildred Schuell 1964
Stimulation approach that employs strong, controlled, and intensive auditory stimulation to maximize the reorganization and recovery of language
Use of controlled Auditory Stimulation
Therapist is NOT retraining BUT stimulating currently inaccessible language centers
The purpose is not to convey new learning but to stimulate old learning-attempt to reorganize a system that has been reorganized by brain damage (Wepman)
Activities for Auditory Abilities, Verbal Abilities, Reading & Writing
Potential Tasks emphasizing Auditory abilities
Point to Tasks
Following Directions/Commands
Yes/no Questions
Sentence or phrase completion
Attend to (stimulation approach)
the clarity of the auditory signal the clarity of the visual materials combining sensory modalities repetitive stimulation rate and pause length and redundancy cues, prompts and prestimulation frequency and meaningfulness syntax order of difficulty patterns of auditory deficits (slow rise time, auditory buildup)
Potential Tasks emphasizing
Auditory abilities Point to Tasks Following Directions/Commands Yes/no Questions Sentence or phrase completion
Thematic Language Stimulation
A systematic approach to aphasia treatment that employs thematically related vocabulary in multimodal stimulation for functional communication.
Firmly rooted in the Schuell model
More person-centered
“changing the way the brain is working by working the brain” (Chapey, p.451)
Focus on functional communication
Melodic Intonation Therapy (Albert, Sparks, & Helm, 1973)
A hierarchically structured program divided into THREE levels aimed at increasing the verbal expression of persons with nonfluent aphasia (Broca’s).
Uses musical elements of rhythm and tone to improve verbal expression
Designed to lead patients from intoning (singing) simple 2-3 syllable phrases to speaking 5 or more syllables.
Best candidates
Severely impaired verbal expression
Auditory Comprehension is better than their verbal expression
Unilateral, left hemisphere stroke
Produces real or accurate words when singing
Poor repetition (even for single words)
Motivation, good attention, and emotionally stable
Intonation based on three elements of spoken prosody
Variation of pitch
Tempo and rhythm
Points of stress
Melodic Intonation Therapy
Each level has 20 high-probability words (e.g. water) and social phrases (e.g. good morning)
Intonation pattern uses a range of 3-4 notes
Elements include an exaggerated melody of at least 2 syllables
MIT is slower, similar to Chant Talking
Progression to longer sentences and questions
Level 1 MIT
Establishing understanding of procedures (e.g. handholding; humming
Level 2 MIT
Humming Unison Intoning Unison intoning with fading Immediate repetition Response to probe question
Level 3 MIT
Phrase introduction
Unison fading
Delayed repetition
Response to probe question
