Case Study
Anomic Aphasia
Age: 64
Time since stroke: 2 months
Problems
Johnnie had a stroke during a heart surgery, with a history of high blood pressure. His wife’s biggest frustration was not being able to understand what Johnnie was talking about, since his speech was fluent and conversational, but didn’t always make sense. He didn’t use ‘made-up’ words, but he often didn’t provide enough information for the listener to fully understand. For example, when talking about a Mexican restaurant he orders from, he said “they specify a variety, they dominate each by section”.Johnnie and his wife also did not work well together to solve these communication problems, resulting in frequent arguments. Johnnie thought his speech was doing fine.
Assessment
Using The Aphasia Center's testing protocols
- Relatively good picture naming
- Difficulty using specific language when speaking
- His attempts to be clearer when speaking only made it worse
- Perseverated on some words, such as “variety” and “realm”
- Wrote 3-4 word sentences independently
- He read simple sentences
- Relatively good auditory comprehension
- Did not recognize that his speech wasn’t specific
Treatment
He completed a 8-week program with tDCS
and My Aphasia Coach software homework daily.
Results
Before
After
Picture description
30%
90%
Cartoon description (story-telling)
31%
75%
Video narrative recall
14%
86%
Repetition
61%
79%
Writing to dictation
50%
90%
Outcome
- His wife learned better strategies to help her understanding and decrease frustration and arguing
- She noted during a business conference that no one would be able to tell he had aphasia or trouble talking
- Improved ability to narrate “stories” with multiple pieces of information
- Learned strategies to help word-finding and used them independently
- Relearned how to navigate his laptop computer
- Improved awareness of errors and noticing when his listeners were confused
- Wrote clear, organized paragraphs with a beginning, middle, and end