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A new therapy for emotional and language recovery in aphasia
What is it about?
After a stroke around a third of people have aphasia, a language disability that can affect speaking, understanding, reading or writing. People with aphasia want therapy to support them with improving communication, confidence and wellbeing. We have developed a new therapy for language recovery and emotional wellbeing through running a series of workshops with people with aphasia, family members and Speech and Language Pathologists. We also met with experts in psychological therapy. We then trialled the new therapy in our university clinic with eight people with aphasia. We found that people improved in how confident they felt talking in different situations and made significant progress with their own personal goals (e.g., feeling at peace, ordering in a cafe). All participants were highly positive about combining psychological and language therapies within a single treatment.
Why is it important?
Loss of language can be devastating: aphasia has been described as ‘identity theft’, and it is common that people with aphasia become depressed, anxious and isolated. Yet they describe struggling to access mental health support due to their language difficulties. This new therapy has been designed as a holistic, meaningful language therapy. It may be a promising way to enable Speech and Language Pathology services to address both emotional and language recovery.