Stroke Diary: A Primer for Aphasia Therapy

Stroke and brain injury resulting in aphasia and losing the ability to read, write, or speak is a devastating disability. This primer provides an array of tools for aphasia therapy and rehabilitation that spur learning for recovery, and to regain those lost skills. On September 26, 2011, Tom Broussard, a recent Ph.D. with an emphasis on helping people with disabilities get work, experienced his stroke in the area of the brain called Broca's area rending him unable to read, write or speak well. Aphasia, the impairment of language, was the result. He kept a diary using drawings, charts and graphic representations including using mostly real words that didn't make much sense. Losing his language meant losing his grammar and syntax. Writing his diary, recording his voice and studying his brain for 9 months, he experienced what the scientists call, "spontaneous recovery." In addition to his own voice, he developed another "voice" (or two) that helped him understand the condition of his thinking and how thinking works. Broussard has been speaking to hospitals, clinics and a wide audience of people with strokes, caregivers, students, and medical professionals with an interest in how our brain works and how recovery is accomplished by someone who saw his brain from the inside. It is a valuable resource with an inspiring story that touches everyone connected to strokes and aphasia.