No speech therapy support for aphasia following a stroke - what can I do to support?

[clebu]

A family member has been discharged from hospital following a mild stroke. The main complication of said stroke is aphasia and short term memory loss.

A speech therapist did a bedside assessment and apparently said no support was needed / will be offered.

Surely that can’t be right?

My family member has difficulty remembering certain categories of words (such as nouns), syntax is a little peculiar, and of course they are tired so conversations and messages are short.

Seeing as no speech therapy help is forthcoming, what can we do to support them? How much improvement is realistic and how do we help them get there?

Have you contacted your local Headway branch for advice? Or the national one if there isn't one locally.

The Stroke Association were a useful source of advice for us after dm had a stroke

I was told by someone that stroke recovery was a bit like what happens to traffic if you shut the M1. Eventually all the cars find different ways of getting through & you can often see recovery over a longer period but it's very individual.

DM's skills certainly improved but she often gets my name & my sister's name muddled up (but never my Ds' name ever!)

I wish you the very best for her recovery it is very hard for those caring too even when someone is able to live at home "independently" x

My Dad had a stoke last year and now suffers from aphasia.

I found a support group for him through this charity. It helped him and my mum to be able to chat about things and find out what others had found useful. He really wasn't the sort of man who I ever thought would go to a support group, but Mum and I persuaded him and he got a lot out of it, meeting people in similar situations and seeing how they had improved over time.

www.sayaphasia.org/Pages/Category/drop-in-groups

He did have weekly speech therapy through the NHS for months afterwards and then after a few months break, they came back and supported him again.
Maybe it depends on the severity of the aphasia or sadly maybe it’s down to local area and funding...

They used apps to help him. He calls it his homework.

He struggled with reading too, so the speech therapist supported him with using the speech to text etc on his phone and getting something that read his kindle books to him.

There's been a definite improvement, but it's a slow old process and there's still a long way to go.

Good luck finding support.

Sorry to hear this. I would suggest the tactus app.
https://tactustherapy.com/app/naming/

@Anonymouse27 That's the one that Dad has. I couldn't remember the name of it (no pun intended!)

It's very good.
He had another one too, but I think it’s this one that allows you to upload your own things.

My Dad was a keen sailor,
so his speech therapist set up part of the app with sailing pictures and terms.
I set it up with photos of all the family and then made it so that he had to find the corresponding names. It was quite simple to do.

Thanks all, this has been so helpful. Love the sound of the app and I think my family member will too. I’ll do some research on it and hopefully it’ll be good! Thank you.

Is there anything that helps for short term memory problems?

Family member is making lots of lists, but is then forgetting where they have put the lists!

One simple thing you can do with a stroke patient is (and this sounds hard) don't make it easy for them. So make the worst affected side work. When mum had her stroke we were told to sit on her worst affected side so that she had to work at turning her head that way.

Sorry I can't help more. Mum's stroke was catastrophic and we gamely paid for private therapy when she was eventually discharged. But neglect of any therapy in hospital and the severity of her stroke meant this was hopeless. If you can afford to pay, and the stroke was mild I'd say it's definitely worth the investment.

Laminated lists in the place you need them.

I use post it notes and my kitchen is filled with of them.

They do fall off after a while

I recommend using Alexa and setting reminders in your phone xx

We bought a an A5 diary - in the early years a day to a page. Long piece of string with a biro on the end. Everything gets written in there s

Also we have a form for the weekly shopping list and dm ticks off what she needs & adds extras on - they're on a little clipboard so don't get lost

Look on your local online volunteering portal. Ours has volunteering posts for supporting stroke language skills. I imagine much needed as there isn’t enough on the nhs. Maybe there’s a charity like this near you