Language Recovery

Communication can exist only when we have a need to express and understand ideas. Too often, families of stroke patients tend to overprotect them, to give them too much help. Many people have the habit of completing the spoken sentences of even well people. We are much more likely to do so with a family member who has suffered a marked reduction in his ability to speak with normal speed. Because we often guess wrong as to what he means to say, we thus often complicate his problem. When we persist in this practice, most patients have no choice but to withdraw completely from any attempt to converse with others.

We should calmly await the patient's completion of his communication unless he indicates a need for assistance. When the patient does forget a key word, he is completely thwarted in finishing his expression. While it is true that he may say that he knows the words but can't get them out, he quite likely means that he is mentally picturing an activity, rather than specific words to describe such thoughts. When a list of words is presented, he often recognizes an appropriate word for which he has been searching; then he can finish what he started to say. To help him best, his family should patiently await his request for help and then be ready to give it to him.

Unless the patient must be confined to his bedroom, he should be, as much as possible, in an environment that encourages him to use language. If this is done in an easy and casual manner, it is quite likely that, with time, he will demonstrate a gradual and even sometimes dramatic recovery in his conversational abilities. When we help an adult patient as much as we do our children to start to use language, the entire household will be far more relaxed.

To help the patient relearn emotional control, he should be allowed to complain. If he has no one to listen to him, his only alternative may be to develop deep depression. This will greatly slow down his recovery.