Case Study - Moderate Broca’s aphasia w/apraxia


Case Study

Moderate Broca’s aphasia w/apraxia

Age: 53

Time since stroke: 14 years


Problems

Ginger was a friendly and hard-working young woman who had a stroke in her early 30's. She had a severe non-fluent aphasia, a young daughter and a family business. She became significantly more shy and embarrassed about her speech, losing her husband and her social hobbies. After years of therapy, she was still embarrassed by her speech, but decided to keep working to make it better.

Her business involved running a farm, so she had to call vendors, write checks and send and read emails. She couldn’t understand or say numbers and she needed help to use her Ipad or computer. She had no family members around to help her, so she did what she could by herself. Her farm was so busy that she couldn’t come for 5 days a week, so she attended therapy 3 days a week.

Assessment

Using The Aphasia Center's testing protocols
  • Spoke in 3-4 word sentences. For example, "Babies, um, me, um, babies born me do" would mean "I help the babies being born".
  • Little to no usable writing except for her name, copying good
  • Read some single words
  • Comprehension good in context
  • Difficulty writing numbers and words for checks

Treatment

8 weeks part-time


Results

Ginger and her friends were thrilled that she could call vendors and employees as well as write checks and read invoices. One vendor even commented on how well and how quickly she wrote his check.

She learned how to add drawing and writing to her communication.

She could read sentences and her email online. While she was nervous at first, she quickly learned that she could be successful with all types of communication.

She sent simple emails with attachments.