Graduate student earns Kensel Giddings Award

Dec. 21, 2007

KALAMAZOO--Western Michigan University graduate student Carolyn Kennedy of Jenison, Mich., has won an award from a special fund established by a Paw Paw, Mich., family to promote better communication options for people with stroke-induced language problems.

Kennedy, a first-year graduate student in speech-language pathology, has been selected to receive the Kensel Giddings Award in Aphasia Education for the 2007-08 academic year. Aphasia is an impairment of the ability to use or comprehend words, usually acquired as a result of a stroke or other brain injury.

Mixed Martial Arts and Boxing

“Head injuries are a substantial risk,” claims the Sports Injury Bulletin. “In one study, for instance, 57% of participants in Tae Kwon Do had experienced some form of head injury. This could range from mild concussion to intracranial bleeds. Case reports of internal carotid artery dissection, stroke, aphasia (loss of speech from brain lesion), hemiplegia and ophthalmic trauma resulting in loss of vision; appear frequently in the literature of the past ten years.”

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WHAT'S UP DOC? Pinning down communication difficulty

Q: My husband has been having difficulty talking to me. It seems as if it is hard for him to get the words out, yet he seems to understand when I speak to him. What can cause this?

A: You seem to be describing what is called expressive aphasia, and that is what I will discuss in today's column. Your doctor can verify this is what is happening, isolate the cause and then help guide your husband to some therapies that may prevent further problems and help improve the symptoms.

We all know that one thing that separates humans from other animals is the extent and complexity in which we are able to use language to communicate; although animals may use language to some extent, the human use of language is much more advanced. Aphasia is any loss (partial or complete) of the ability to understand or express language (oral or written). next....

Robbed of power to communicate

A bookshelf greets visitors as they walk into Lindsay Richardson's living room, a range of paperbacks and hardbacks propped in rows. However, these days the former secondary school teacher struggles to enjoy them. A stroke suddenly robbed her of the power to interpret written language.

She recalls: "It was great to be home from hospital, but the real worries were yet to come. I used to read a lot, my house was full of books and I could not read a word.

"Reading was lost to me and that was so frustrating."

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Recovery and treatment of aphasia after stroke: functional imaging studies

Crinion, J.T., et al. - Recent studies of aphasia recovery allow a deeper appreciation of the changing neuronal activation patterns associated with time after stroke. The distinction between neuronal reorganization that does and does not sustain recovery in the chronic phase after stroke, either spontaneous or in response to treatment, remains controversial and further studies are necessary [more...]

Aphasia

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David Shenk Answers Your Questions About Alzheimer's

Shenk: Very important question. "Dementia" and "senile dementia" are generic terms that describe a set of symptoms - memory loss, confusion, aphasia, and so on. Every case of dementia is caused by one or another disease. Alzheimer's is one of those diseases, and is by far the most common cause of dementia. There are other diseases that cause dementia - multi-infarct dementia, fronto-temporal dementia, and others. But the important point here is that it is no longer acceptable for a doctor to leave a diagnosis at "just
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