American Stroke Foundation

There are several different types of evaluations completed in an acute care setting post stroke.

Speech Therapists are considered to be part of rehabilitation medicine and can be found in acute care, inpatient rehabilitation, outpatient rehabilitation, home health, and private practice settings.

Aphasia is caused when there is some type of trauma to the left side of the brain that impacts the language-processing center of the brain. It impacts an individual’s ability to read, write, speak, and understand language. It is important to remember that each case of aphasia is unique and looks different depending on the individual.

Aphasia causes individuals to lose the ability to say, understand, read, or write words. It is important to remember that aphasia does not impact cognition. Receptive aphasia is the inability or difficulty to understand spoken language. Expressive aphasia is the inability or difficulty to speak language. 

An important reminder — aphasia is simply the loss of language due to trauma experienced on the left side of the brain. Aphasia is not your intelligence!

Aphasia is varies widely from person to person. Survivors of stroke with aphasia are coached by speech language therapists in many different ways. Individuals with aphasia are encouraged to relax as it can aid in helping them find the right words. They are also encouraged to remove or minimize distractions within the environment. 

Communication cards can help to provide a clear understanding of why an individual may be unable to communicate in a stressful situation.