Those Three Magic Words

For the next 6 weeks I will be working with people who have had strokes and one of the things that can occur when someone has a stroke they can lose the ability to express themselves. The loss of the ability to express oneself or to understand verbal instructions is known as aphasia. One of he people who I am treating is experiencing expressive aphasia and right hemiparesis (paralysis of the right side of the body).

What makes this lady so interesting is that when I first went to see her on Tuesday she only said three words "yes", "no" and "shit". When she is trying to give instruction or let you know how she is doing she simply says "yes yes yes, yes yes yes yes." On the other hand when she doesn't want to do something during treatment she tells me "no". When she is in pain or I ask your to do something she doesn't think she can do she says "shit", but she does it with a nice little smile on her face.

As this week has continued she has added the words push, don't, up, down, and the numbers one through twenty. It is the funniest thing when she counts because she can't begin counting until she hears me say one, and she continues fairly consecutively with some prompting and since we we stop the exercises at twenty she sometimes just skips right to twenty so she can be done.

I think I will enjoy this affiliation especially when I get into the swing of things and get to see my patients progress.