What to Know About Language and Communication Recovery
Recovery should be defined in terms of regaining autonomy and the psychosocial readaptation of the person facing aphasia.
Communication recovery for individuals with aphasia, beyond psychometric measurements, is reflected in daily life communication, reintegration into social life, and the sense of normalcy and ease regained by both the patient and their family.
General objectives of therapeutic intervention in language recovery
- Reducing deficits;
- Efficiently using intact structures;
- Finding alternative/adaptive methods of communication.
Currently, therapy and recovery for aphasia patients involve combining several complementary methods, such as:
- Pharmacological therapy;
- Language re-education;
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation.
Specialists involved in the therapy and recovery of aphasia patients
- Neurologist, neurosurgeon;
- Speech therapist / psychologist / aphasiologist;
- Physical therapist;
- Family doctor, other specialists (in cases of associated conditions).
For effective language recovery, good collaboration between the aphasiologist and other specialists is essential, along with the establishment of a coherent therapeutic protocol tailored to each patient.
Mechanisms involved in language re-education:
- Compensation, which involves using alternative communication methods;
- Restoration, which aims to restore affected functions;
- Reorganization, where other areas of the brain take over lost functions.
These mechanisms operate at several levels of recovery:
- Neuronal,
- Cognitive,
- Behavioral.
Specific techniques for language recovery
- Techniques for recovering alexia and agraphia (reading and writing disorders);
- Techniques for recovering articulation disorders (correcting pronunciation and fluency);
- Agrammatism therapy (improving the grammatical structure of sentences);
- Auditory decoding therapy (improving the ability to understand sounds and words);
- Non-verbal communication therapy (using gestures, facial expressions, and other non-verbal communication methods);
- Therapy to enhance right hemisphere competence (to compensate for functional losses in the left hemisphere);
- Communication support methods (techniques that facilitate communication using assistive technologies or other adaptive resources).