• Cerebrovascular Accidents  

• Traumatic Brain Injuries  

• Other demyelinating conditions   

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What services do Speech-Language Pathologists provide? 

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The Speech-Language Pathologists at SFS Therapies provide individualized services to improve cognition, communication, and swallowing that may be impaired as a result of the patient’s condition. Therapy involves the rehabilitation of those skills along with training of compensatory strategies, counseling, providing patient/caregiver education, and improving overall quality of life.   

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SFS Therapies can treat the following impairments: 

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Aphasia:  The inability to understand spoken language and express thoughts, ideas, and/or feelings. These difficulties can range from mild to severe and can lead to impairments in word-finding, repetition, grammatical sentence production based on rest of formatting and understanding questions/topics in conversation.               

 

Apraxia of speech (AOS):  The impairment of the muscles used to produce speech. People who have AOS may have difficulty repeating speech and moving their tongue and/or lips to say the right sounds along with having a slower a rate of speech. 

 

Cognition:  Involves memory, attention, planning, and organization. People who have deficits in cognition may have difficulty paying attention to a task, managing finances, and orienting themselves to the environment and people around them.  

 

Dysarthria:  Results from muscle weakness and may affect the patient’s ability to be understood by others. People who have this may have “slurred” speech, a monotone vocal quality, poor breathing, slow rate of speech, and/or reduced loudness.  

 

Dysphagia:   Involves difficulty or discomfort with swallowing food and/or liquid. People who have this may have the sensation of getting food stuck in their throat, begin drooling, have “wet” or “gurgly” vocal qualities, sudden weight loss, and/or spikes in body temperature. 

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Treatment Methods 

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• Augmentative and Alternative Communication-for people who can’t express themselves verbally 

• Melodic Intonation Therapy- to increase sentence length in people with aphasia  

• Pharyngeal strengthening exercises- to improve swallowing function  

• 8 step task continuum-to assist with Apraxia of Speech  

This list is by no means comprehensive, but offers an idea of what might be done in the rehabilitation of some of these neurological disorders.