What Is Stroke (Offering Best Online Speech Therapy)?

A stroke occurs when blood cannot access an area of the brain. This could be because of a blood clot (called an Ischemic stroke) or because of a broken blood vessel (a Hemorrhagic stroke).

Strokes can lead to:

• Paralysis
• Muscle weakness
• Cognitive issues
• Speech and language impairment
• Decreased emotional control

There are many forms of speech impairment stroke patients can suffer from that are grouped under the general term aphasia.

Read a detailed blog on Online speech therapy for adults 

What Is Aphasia?

If the stroke happens in an area of the brain that controls speech or communication, it can cause aphasia.

Aphasia is a language and/or speech impairment. This can affect speech, writing, reading, and general communication.

Every stroke patient will not experience aphasia, but it’s estimated that as many as 40 percent of stroke survivors have some form of aphasia.

While some stroke patients will regain normal speech patterns post-stroke others may need to practice some speech therapy exercises at home that can help during recovery.

Read a detailed blog on Tips for improve speech after stroke

Speech therapy can help with speech and language improvement after a stroke.

A patient who survives stroke has to go through moderate to severe speech and language impairments known as Aphasia.

• It can be corrected or at least reduced by Speech Therapy Exercises for stroke.
• These speech therapy exercises usually vary from person to person, depending upon many factors like age, severity, and needs etc.
• There are many speech therapy exercises that can be performed to minimise speech impairments.

Ideally, one should work with a Speech Language Pathologist to improve their language skills. Then they can use the following Best online Speech Therapy Excercises for Adults With Speech Disorders to practice at home.

Read a detailed blog on online speech therapy can help stroke cases.

Exercises for Stroke Management

Here are some Most Popular Online Speech Therapy Exercises For Stroke Patients that can be tried at home:

1. Tongue In and Out

• Stick the tongue out and hold it for 2 seconds, then pull it back in.

• Hold for 2 seconds, and repeat.
• This helps train the tongue to move with coordinated patterns, which will help produce better speech.

2. Tongue Side to Side

• For this speech therapy exercise, open your mouth and move your tongue to touch the right corner of your mouth.
• Hold for 2 seconds, and then touch the left corner of your mouth.
• Hold for 2 seconds, and repeat.

3. Tongue Up and Down

• Open your mouth and stick your tongue out. Then, reach your tongue up toward your nose.

• Hold for 2 seconds and then reach your tongue down toward your chin. Hold for 2 seconds, and repeat.

• It’s best to do all of these speech therapy exercises in front of the mirror so that you can get visual feedback.

4. Say Cheese!

Here’s another simple speech therapy exercise that improves oral motor skills.

• Practice smiling in front of a mirror. Smile and then relax. Repeat as much as possible.
• The mirror is important because it provides feedback, which is fuel for your brain!

5. Practice Kissing Face

• When done practicing those smiles, try making kissing face by puckering your lips.
• Pucker the lips together and then relax. Repeat as often as possible.
• One should slow down the movement for even better control.

6. Consonant & Vowel Pairing Repetition

• Now that we’ve completed the simple speech therapy exercises, let’s move onto more complex activities.
• Take a consonant that one have trouble saying, and then pair it with each of the 5 vowels (a, e, i, o, u).

• For example, if one has trouble with the “r” sound, then practice saying “ra, re, ri, ro, ru” over and over.
• If one is feeling ambitious, try this with all consonants.

7.  Breathing Exercises

• A common symptom of aphasia and speech impairment in stroke patients is trouble regulating breathing while speaking.
• This can cause a person to take breaths in the middle of sentences, which makes it difficult to speak at length as well as be understood by listeners.

• Doing breathing exercises can help one regulate their breathing while speaking much easier.
• Try demonstrating a deep breath and then speak while exhaling.
• Make the patient practice planning out the breaths they take while speaking. They have to repeat simple sentences and breaths to themselves to master when taking a breath.
• This will help the patient learn to plan breathing pauses as they relearn how to construct sentences and breathe properly during speech.

8.  Sentence Production

• Patients with speech apraxia, for example, have no trouble with the cognitive side of language production. However, their ability to move their lips and tongue is impaired.
• Therefore, reading aloud provides an opportunity to practice speaking.

• This can be frustrating for patients with moderate to severe aphasia, so be patient.
• Start small! By practicing a few very simple sentences for short periods of time, like one or two minutes. Then, increase the practice duration from there.

9. Phonological Processing

• Phonology refers to the pattern of speech sounds.
• Speech therapy exercises that help with phonology can also help patients improve their ability to produce speech.
• For this exercise, the patient will guess how many syllables are in a word and the caregiver will say different words.
• Each time the caregiver say a word, the patient has to guess how many syllables are in that word.
• The caregiver should always tell the patient whether he/she is right or wrong to provide feedback.
• The feedback is part of what makes this exercise therapeutic.

10. Word Games

• Word games make great speech therapy exercises for adults.
• Although one isn’t producing speech, these games challenge the patient’s language processing skills.
• To exercise problem solving and visual processing, try word games like word searches or crossword puzzles.
• Most brain games will help improve speech when one practices them regularly.

Tips for communication with stroke survivors:

A person with aphasia often faces difficulty to communicate in long sentence.

• A simple strategy that can help is to ask questions in a “Yes” or “No” framework. For example, ask the person if they are thirsty or hungry, which can be answered with a simple yes or no.
• Other strategies include keeping spoken messages simple, reducing environmental distractions like a loud TV, and using hand gestures in addition to verbal language.
• Simplify language by using short, uncomplicated sentences.
• Repeat or try writing down key words to clarify meaning as needed.
• Maintain a natural conversational manner appropriate for an adult.
• Encourage any type of communication whether it is speech, gestures, pointing, or drawing.
• Avoid correcting the person's speech.
• Allow the person plenty of time to talk.

Exercises for Stroke Management

Message:

A person with stroke deserves respect, attention, patience and the chance to be heard.

Important thing to Remember!

Your loved ones need your care, love, time and support to recover fast!