Get your doctor to contact the researchers to get the exact method to be used for your stroke protocol.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130115153519.htm
Stroke victims affected with loss of speech caused by
Broca's aphasia have been shown to speak fluidly through the use of a
process called "speech entrainment" developed by researchers at the
University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health.
Aphasia, a severe communication problem caused by damage to the
brain's left hemisphere and characterized by halting speech, occurs in
about one-third of people who have a stroke and affects personal and
professional relationships. Using the speech entrainment technique,
which involves mimicking other, patients showed significant improvement
in their ability to speak.
The results of the study are published in a recent issue of the neurology journal Brain.
"This is the first time that we have seen people with Broca's aphasia
speak in fluent sentences," said Julius Fridriksson, the study's lead
researcher and a professor with the Department of Communication Sciences
and Disorders at the Arnold School. "It is a small study that gives us
an understanding of how the brain functions after a stroke, and it
offers hope for thousands of people who suffer strokes each year."
In Fridriksson's study, 13 patients completed three separate
behavioral tasks that were used to understand the effects of speech
entrainment on speech production. During the "speech entrainment-audio
visual" portion of the study, participants attempted to mimic a speaker
in real-time whose mouth was made visible on the 3.5-inch screen of an
iPod Touch and whose speech was heard via headphones.
The "speech entrainment-audio only" condition involved real-time
mimicking speech presented via headphones with the screen of the iPod
blank. During a spontaneous speech condition, patients spoke about a
given topic without external aid.
Each patient also completed a three-week training phase where they
practiced speech every day with the aid of speech entrainment. Overall,
the training resulted in improved spontaneous speech production,
something that is relatively rare in this population. Ultimately the
patients were able to produce a short script about their stroke to tell
to other people.
Neuroimaging results from the patient subjects have also given
Fridriksson and his research team a greater understanding of the
mechanism involved in speech entrainment.
"Preliminary results suggest that training with speech entrainment
improves speech production in Broca's aphasia, providing a potential
therapeutic method for a disorder that has been shown to be particularly
resistant to treatment," Fridriksson said.
Click here
to see an online video of speech entrainment. The video features a
former Green Beret and career military officer who suffered a stroke in
his 50s and has been unable to speak for about 22 years, except for a
couple of phrases. The video first shows him speaking with and without
audio-visual speech feedback. The patient struggles to produce
spontaneous speech but is able to mimic fluent speech using audio-visual
feedback.
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