Deans' stroke musings: Self-Delivered Speech Therapy Feasible for Aphasia in Stroke

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Self-Delivered Speech Therapy Feasible for Aphasia in Stroke

Well this was out earlier; probably meaning that insurance will no longer pay for speech therapy because it can be self-directed.

Constant Therapy rolls out mobile, personalized brain rehabilitation via the iPad

The latest here;

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/846622?src=wnl_edit_tpal

A speech therapy program self delivered daily by use of an application for tablet computer significantly improved language scores in chronic stroke patients with aphasia, in a new pilot study.
Brielle Stark, a PhD student, at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom (UK), concluded that such self-delivered app-based programs may be an effective and affordable way of ensuring that chronic stroke patients gain access to the regular high-dose speech therapy they need.
"Speech therapy is hugely labor intensive," she said. "This program would not replace speech therapists but would be complementary to them. The speech therapist could set exercises to do on a tablet as homework between sessions."
The study was presented at the recent 24th European Stroke Conference (ESC).
Commenting for Medscape Medical News, Pam Enderby, MBE DSc, professor of speech therapy at Sheffield University, UK, called the study "a great contribution."
"It is so important to be looking at technology for aphasia," she said. "Intensity of therapy is vital for stroke patients with aphasia, but costs do not allow daily sessions with a speech therapist. Aphasia therapy is therefore definitely going to have incorporate technology."
Stark explained that about one third of patients with stroke develop aphasia, and only 20% fully recover, so it often becomes a chronic condition. "Language and speech therapy is effective in aphasia and high dosage is most effective, but access to speech therapy is very variable."
She added that in the UK, most patients with aphasia will have to wait up to 6 months for speech therapy, and then will only get one session a week for about 8 weeks. "I'm sure this is not just a UK problem," she said. "In the US similar problems occur because health insurance often does not cover speech therapy past a certain number of months."