Speech Therapy After Stroke: How It Helps Stroke Patients Reclaim Their Voice
A stroke is a life-altering occurrence, and its ramifications extend into every facet of a person's life. Perhaps the area most impacted by a stroke is speech and language. For many stroke survivors, the ability to speak is a central piece of their recovery. Thus, speech therapy post stroke plays a crucial role in recovery.
Speech therapy after a stroke can help patients regain their voice, confidence, and independence. If you or a loved one are dealing with a post-stroke recovery process, it can be empowering to understand speech rehabilitation and some helpful exercises. Let’s take a close look at speech therapy for stroke patients, how it works, and the top exercises to utilise to enhance recovery.
What is Speech Therapy After Stroke?
Speech therapy following a stroke is a rehabilitative treatment intended to assist individuals in regaining their ability to speak, understand and process language. Depending on the severity of the stroke, the therapy might focus on speaking clearly, understanding spoken language, or addressing swallowing issues, which is common for those who have had a stroke. Since strokes can affect different areas of the brain that govern the use of speaking clearly, language comprehension, and swallowing, therapy is very individual-specific.
For stroke survivors, singing language therapy can make an incredible impact on improving an individual's quality of life. The therapy includes a range of techniques, exercises, and tools to help improve communication impairments that occur as a result of the stroke. The communication impairments may be aphasia (difficulty speaking or understanding spoken language), dysarthria (difficulty producing intelligible speech or slurred speech), or apraxia (difficulty performing the movements necessary for speech production). Each speech therapy session helps the individual relearn to have the brain and body work together.
Related Learning: Stroke Paralysis
Understanding the Best Speech Therapy Exercises
Speech therapy exercises vary after a stroke based on the patient. However, there are several exercises which are useful for improving communication skills, including speech production as well as comprehension. These are some of the best speech therapy exercises that have been shown to help stroke survivors regain their language use.
1. Repetition Exercises
Repetition is a key focus of speech rehabilitation after stroke. By repeating words, phrases, and sentences, it helps to retrain the brain and the physical muscles used to make speech sounds and produce language. The first thing the patient is asked to do is repeat words after the therapist is spoken slowly, at 1st speed walking (slow), then 2nd speed walking (fast). When they are able to repeat the sounds consistently in each task, we increase the complexity of the tasks.
2. Word-Finding Activities
An aspect of language therapy is relating the words with the sounds of the words. Someone who has had a stroke may have lost the ability to find words or make connections between sounds and meanings. Word finding can relate to the words themselves, or naming objects in pictures or completing sentences can work on word finding. All of these types of activities work to create a connection between the picture/object name and the sound it represents to retrieve the name.
3. Oral Motor Exercises
Many stroke patients have difficulty in the muscle quality to provide speech sounds and swallow. Oral muscle exercises will help patients strengthen muscles used to speak (mouth) and swallow (lips, tongue and jaw). Simple exercises, including puckering lips to a straw, smiling, and saying "ah", are examples, but the most important idea is the increased complexity of the tasks with each progressive response to the same task.
4. Picture and Story Naming
Stroke survivors may have challenges with recalling names or generating sentences. A speech therapist may use picture cards or storybooks to have the patient name the items or describe the stories. These techniques will help the patient with vocabulary and fluency.
5. Reading Aloud
Reading aloud is another good speech rehabilitation after stroke. This exercise helps to re-establish the connection between words written and verbalised. An early goal is to read some simple text with a patient, and as they improve their language skills, challenge them with more complicated materials.
6. Breathing and Voice Exercises
In some instances, stroke patients experience breathing issues that impact their speech. Breathing exercises can increase overall lung capacity and help with the control of voice production. Breathing aggressively, humming, and singing are other great ways for a patient to build their talking voice.
7. Sound Stimulation Exercises
These exercises are helpful for stroke survivors who are struggling with articulation and pronunciation. They typically involve the therapist saying some sounds or words and having the stroke survivor repeat the sounds or words while ensuring that the stroke survivor can produce the sounds or words appropriately.
8. Writing and Communication Exercises
Writing activities are effective for those with aphasia or difficulties comprehending language. Stroke survivors can begin writing simple sentences and then progress to more difficult writing, which will help to reconnect their speech and written language.
9. Concentration Exercises
Concentration is often impaired in stroke, which may affect communication. Simple concentration activities, such as association games or simple puzzles, can aid in improving cognitive function and communication for stroke survivors.
10. Functional Communication Activities
Functional communication activities are based on the idea of something real in life. For example, there are suggestions to practise using the telephone, what to say when ordering food in a restaurant, or having a simple conversation with a friend. These types of activities are not only preparing the stroke survivor for real-life situations, but they also provide a sense of comfort and confidence.
Related Learning: Difference Between Stroke and Heart Attack
Why Choose Olive Eldercare for Geriatric Counselling?
At Olive Eldercare, we realise the difficulty associated with providing care for loved ones with speech rehabilitation after stroke. Our experienced team of caring professionals can provide tailored speech rehabilitation therapy services. We have qualified, experienced therapists that understand the complexities associated with the unique needs of a patient with a stroke. Our speech therapists work hands-on with patients to help develop care treatment plans utilising various researched speech therapy exercises to support the recovery process.
If you are looking for speech rehabilitation after a stroke or looking for any type of geriatric counselling, Olive Eldercare is here for you. We believe in providing support for our patients and empowering them to live fulfilling, independent lives while providing the best care we can for survivors of stroke.
Find elder care support at Olive Eldercare! Let's help you or your loved one on their recovery journey.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, lots of stroke survivors can regain their speech back with speech therapy. As always, recovery depends on how severe the stroke was, where the stroke occurred, and how quickly speech therapy begins. With that said, there are times when full recovery of the ability to speak is not possible, but speech therapy can still greatly improve the ability to communicate.
You want to start speech rehabilitation after stroke occurs. The sooner, the better for recovering speech and language skills. Ideally, you should begin speech therapy within the first few days or weeks of a stroke since earlier speech therapy has a better recovery outcome.
A stroke on the left hemisphere of the brain is most likely to affect someone’s speech function, especially if the stroke occurs in Broca’s area or Wernicke’s area (speech and language areas). It’s also worth noting that strokes that occur elsewhere in the brain can also affect a person’s speaking ability.
Definitely! Speech therapy is highly effective for stroke patients who have difficulty speaking or understanding language. Speech therapy helps patients regain their expression and understanding of language and their ability to communicate with others. It helps improve overall cognitive function, thus increasing the quality of life post-stroke.
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