Back on our Feet

It took a little gumption, but we are back on our feet and walking the hallway rail once again. Only four times yesterday, not even close to our former record of nine times, but it's a start. Bob, I could tell, was very wary about it at first. 

Meanwhile, I've been in a quandary as to what to do about Speech Therapy. The more I look at that video (two posts down), the more I realize that his speaking is not improving, regardless of what other people think. So the question comes down to this: do we continue doing the same speech therapy exercises if they don't seem to be working? Or is it a matter of repetition and practice? I just don't know.... 

I've been to the library and pretty much exhausted all local books on aphasia etc. and am down to hunting sources on the Internet. I did discover that Bob has Broca's aphasia, that opposed to Wernicke's, which is actually good because prognosis for improvement is better with Broca's than the other. (Why no doctor or therapist ever pointed this out to me, I don't know.) Although, I'm not finding much info on treatments (except "buy our video for $699.00" etc.) Bob's main problems are not being able to find the "right word", not being able name objects/things, and not being able to speak in complete sentences. I read somewhere that Broca's aphasia is considered to have progressed when it becomes anomic ("anomic" meaning the inability to name objects), but does that mean this ability will never come back?

I sometimes feel like we've exhausted flash cards. I mean, how many times do you show him a picture of a giraffe and he still does not know what it is before you give up? And just how important is it to know what a giraffe is, anyway? He certainly won't be meeting one of those on the street. When I get him dressed in the morning, I always quiz him by holding up his socks and asking him what they are called. I do this with each article of clothing and this past week, two days in a row, he remembered "socks" and "pants" and I was thrilled, but yesterday, once again, he did not have a clue as to which were the socks, pants or shirt....  aaargh. I keep trying.

I did run into one thing in the packet of info the Speech Therapist gave me. A worksheet on "articulation of consonants, increasing length and complexity". I saw this and thought: what's this? They never did this before. Because everything else in the packet is pretty much stuff they were doing in therapy. The therapy is for speech repetition and goes like this:

Fish

Fishing

She is fishing.

Some of the examples were pretty stupid, i.e.

Vick

Vicky

Her name is Vicky.

I spent a good deal of yesterday morning going through the dictionary looking for words I could use and making up my own sheets. I think it helps if the practice work can be related to, i.e.:

Bark

Barking

Boomer is barking.

or 

Murder

Murdered

The neighbor was murdered.

or

Dust

Dusty

The house is dusty.

Oh well. We'll see if this works/helps him. Right now I have to run. So:

End

Ending

This post is ending.