Hello everyone. It is now three months since my mother`s rupture and SAH. After three weeks in a coma we have come a long way. She is doing amazing recovery. Phisically she is gettng stronger every day. She can move her right hand and she can walk. I think she is feeling cold on the right side of the body and she feels tingling. It is hard to say because she can not speak. She has Wernickes aphasia and apraxia. It is hard because we can not communicate but also this is getting better every day. I relly hope her understanding and speech will improve.
Yep, it gets better with a lot of work. It’s also know as Receptive Aphasia. People who speak slow, do pauses in between simple short sentences helped me understand what they were saying. Don’t speak to her like a baby, that is really aggravating! Body language, hand gestures, all were more understandable.
Now, I get about 80-90% of normal speech. I can fake it well enough within a group. Sometimes I will ask my partner to go over the conversation with me after we leave, so I know I am understanding. In ICU I didn’t always get the word correct. Nurses, doctors, heck even housekeeping would say “did you mean…?” Sometimes a doctor would come in, spout something off and I didn’t understand any of it. LOL. Thank God a nurse was always there for me to ask. Didn’t speak a whole lot for the first three weeks in ICU, curse words were too easy to say and for some reason I knew afterwards I had used profanity. One or two of the staff encouraged it, but I was adamant not to… And then they put in a C-line and A-Line. I implored Jesus, Mary and Joseph along with a lot of cussing. Besides the shot in my gut every day, those lines were the most painful.
I got out and went to work with a Speech Therapist when I was able to drive and stay awake for three hours at a stretch. Homework every day. Exhausting! Also my friends brought me easy read books in ICU, the first few, I didn’t understand half of what I read. But I remembered I love to read, read every day before and for some reason, it was vitally important for me to hold a book. This was about 2 1/2 weeks post SAH. It makes me emotional when I think about it. There were a couple of nurses and a med student that I was comfortable asking what the word was and what it meant. I had to learn to wait for one of them before I could continue reading or forget it all. They took their time, lots of patience with me…I could just hug them! One time had to go to ER and couldn’t remember how to write my name. Something I did hundreds of times a month prior to SAH. I work everyday on it, I don’t articulate as well as I used to, I speak a lot, which is frustrating. Depending on how tired I am, I notice more pausing to find the word. But I’m told I look for words all the time anyways, just not as much as when I got out of ICU.
If they have given your Mom a Speech Therapist already, get with them on how you can help communicate better. Physical and Speech therapy were provided by the nursing staff for me. Again, the med student, was the most helpful in answering questions for my family. There is probably a lot of information on line. I’d stick with a reputable aphasia organization, or even the Stroke Association
Oh and I think it was the first breakfast I ordered - Walnut and Cherry for bacon and eggs, BLO (boiled linseed oil) for hot tea. Guess I wanted to do some woodworking;).
Family members and friends can use the following tips when communicating with a person with aphasia:
Simplify your sentences and slow your pace.
Keep conversations one-on-one initially.
Allow the person time to talk.
Don’t finish sentences or correct errors.
Reduce distracting noise in the environment.
Keep paper and pencils or pens available.
Write a key word or a short sentence to help explain something.
Help the person with aphasia create a book of words, pictures and photos to assist with conversations.
Use drawings or gestures when you aren’t understood.
Involve the person with aphasia in conversations as much as possible.
Check for comprehension or summarize what you’ve discussed.
Thank you Moltroub. For now she is in rehabilitation center, where she works with speech therapist every day. After she Will get home, we Will have to practice with her, therapist Will give us instructions. It is very hard to work with her, she has troubles even with repeating letters, for instance you say to repeat after you the letter E, she says A.
Wacky, I just heard my voice the other day. What I hear me as, is not what I sound like on a recording. To me, my voice in my head is higher with more pauses and more “a” sounds at the end of words. Perhaps your Mom is undergoing something similiar. Please be patient with yourself and your mother. Remember to do something you like to do each day. Good luck to you and your mom, speech therapy can be exhaustingly rewarding. Don’t give up!