What We Provide
Northern Michigan Regional Hospital Rehabilitation Services department is dedicated to improving quality of life for all individuals with aphasia. This is achieved by providing an evaluation, diagnosis, education, and treatment to all ages, infants through adults, with aphasia.
Who Can Benefit From Aphasia Therapy
Aphasia is a loss or reduction of language skills due to brain injury. It is a breakdown in the ability to use and/or understand language. It involves thinking, understanding, talking, reading, and writing. It may affect a single aspect of language use, such as the ability to retrieve the names of objects. More commonly, multiple aspects of language use are impaired. Aphasia can occur in people of any age, sex, race or nationality. Typical diagnosis types include stroke (CVA), traumatic brain injury, brain tumors, post-neurological surgery, and infections of the brain.
Treatment Strategies
Following an initial evaluation, the speech-language pathologist and patient (plus family members if appropriate) will develop a personalized treatment plan. Through focused therapy sessions, the speech-language pathologist will address the goals in the treatment plan in a variety of activities, often incorporating computer use if appropriate. While some activities focus on comprehension or understanding language, other tasks may focus more on speech production. Compensatory strategies and/or non-verbal communication techniques are often taught to enhance functional communication abilities. Counseling regarding the use of communication aids such as electronic communication boards may also be explored. Our speech-language pathologists also counsel patients and families to help them learn more about aphasia and how it affects the patient's life, offer suggestions for resources in the community, and teach principles of supportive communication to family members.
Northern Michigan Regional Hospital Rehabilitation Services can be reached at 231.487.4200.