People who suffer from expressive aphasia find it very difficult to either write, speak or read. The result-expressive aphasia sufferers, cannot communicate and converse effectively.
Expressive aphasia can either be a direct result of a brain stroke or sometimes may even be caused by a trauma the body suffers after surviving an accident.
By improving communication in expressive aphasia sufferers, we can give them a chance to converse in an understandable manner.
Symptoms of Expressive Aphasia: Expressive aphasia sufferers are known to exhibit the following symptoms:
- Suffer from nomia (know the word but cannot remember it to use in a sentence).
- Do not follow a sequence while speaking, would place the words in a jumbled manner while speaking.
- May stop communicating.
- Utter new words with no meanings leading the listener to a confused state.
Techniques to Improve Communication: Improving communication in expressive aphasia sufferers can be achieved through implementing the following techniques. These techniques would provide the aphasia sufferer a chance to express his thoughts in an understandable manner.
- Recognise their strengths.The thing to keep in mind is that aphasia sufferers are not mentally retarded. In fact, their intellectual capabilities are intact. Recognising this fact would boost the morale of the sufferer and keep him off from getting frustrated. Remember you are conversing with an adult and not a child.
- Give them some extra time. A conversation between two normal adults can be free flowing and very natural. But, expressive aphasia sufferers need some time to understand the conversation and then to articulate their reply. Always allow them the time to respond or express a sign. Only then, continue with what you are saying.
- Restrict using expressions and signs. During a conversation, we usually tend to use a lot of non-verbal signs that are understood by the listener. But, an expressive aphasia sufferer cannot pick up these signs and would tend to back off from such a conversation which might lead to a depression.
- Develop an answering pattern. Normally, the easiest questions to answer are the yes/no ones. Extracting yes/no answers from an aphasia sufferer are easier and this would enable us to address any issues that they might have.
- Try to make the communications visual. For instance, you can write down numbers and alphabets on a board or in a book and ask the patient to point out as per his requirement. Images of daily used objects can also be very helpful.
- Singing can improve word remembrance. Group singing can help aphasia sufferers remember words which they normally cannot.
- Pets can be a method of therapy. A recent study suggests that pet assisted therapy has an effect on the verbal and non-verbal skills of an aphasia patient.
Improving communication in aphasia sufferers must be given paramount importance, failing which, would lead the patients to frustration and ultimately depression.
