“Stroke is the leading cause of disability in America” and is widely known for its inequitable ability to cause multiple extreme disabilities as a result.3 Aphasia is the loss of the ability to understand or express speech generally due to brain damage. “ Focal brain damage from cerebrovascular accident is the common cause of aphasia, affecting the left hemisphere of the brain in different aspects of language in approximately 38% of acute cases”. 1 Due to the fact that the incident of a stroke can be extremely varied and unpredictable, recovery from its effects is a regressive process that takes much time.
In recovery, time is of the essence, one must recognize the signs of stroke and seek help immediately in hopes to prevent further damage.Recovery is done in many different ways, including but not limited to linguistic activities (i.e., games, songs, rhymes), writing activities, drawing, and shape recognition. To most this would seem like a dubious attempt however, these activities stimulate different damaged portions of the brain causing a majority of neural pathways to fire again. “The human brain is so fictile with such a great amount of plasticity that something as simple as language can improve its condition late after a stroke ”. 1 Due to a limited amount of knowledge on neuroscience and brain tissue recovery, there is no real right or wrong way to go about improving aphasia. While there are better methods than others, the importance lies in seeking help quickly and staying persistent in recovery. Remember, if you don’t use it you will lose it.
Many would lean to believe that the majority of damage could be seen on an (MRI) Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. However, “The size of the lesion and the age of the patient only account for ~40% of case variance”. 2
 |
| http://tinyurl.com/6xrpb82 |
1 Pulvermuller, F., Neininger, B., Elbert, T., Mohr, B., Rockstroh, B., Koebbel, P., & Taub, E. (2001). Constraint-Induced Therapy of Chronic Aphasia After Stroke. Stroke, 32, 1621-1626.
2 Brownsett, S., Warren, J., Geranmayeh, F., Woodhead, Z., Leech, R., & Wise, R. (2014). Cognitive Control and its Impact on Recovery from Aphasic Stroke. Brain, 137(1), 242-254. Retrieved November 3, 2014, from http://tinyurl.com/nhj6m2y
3 Prevalence of Stroke — United States, 2006–2010. (2012, May 25). Retrieved November 5, 2014.
You stated above that the "lesion size only accounted for 40% of the variance between cases." Were there any variables that accounted the remaining 60%?
ReplyDeleteThis is especially interesting to me because my grandmother died from a stroke and when she was in the hospital she struggled with speech and other typical activities like writing. My Aunt is an OT and when I went to work with her over summer the ST worked a lot on memorization and writing techniques with the stroke victims. We played games with a deck of cards and different games like word puzzles and word searches.
ReplyDeleteThe first quote immediately caught my attention and made me want to continue to read more instead of instantly getting bored. I also like how it explains what exactly aphasia is. Lastly, i like how it includes what types of damage smoking can cause and what aphasia can cause.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I didnt know that a stroke was the leading cause of disability in America. Post Stroke medical is such an important part of becoming healthy again.
ReplyDelete