Penny speaks words of affection with Speech Pathology

Saying words of affection to the people we love is one of the powerful ways we can communicate. This was what Penny lost after her stroke in October 2019. Penny’s stroke caused aphasia and apraxia, which affected her ability to speak. Aphasia makes it difficult or impossible for a person to understand written or verbal language, while apraxia is a motor disorder that affects a person’s ability to move their mouth and tongue in order to form words.

Penny engaged Better Rehab, and with the support of Speech Pathologist Elly, Penny can now express herself and join family conversations!

• Elly helped Penny trial and purchase an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device on her iPad. With this device, Penny is able to express her needs and wants. This includes being able to use functional phrases such as Let’s go walking, Good morning, Good night and How are you?
• She is now able to answer yes or no questions with 100% accuracy
• Prior to therapy, Penny was unable to count from 1 to 10 or name the days of the week – now she can do these automatic speech tasks independently

Best of all, Penny was able to say a heartwarming message, on her own, without using her communication device: “I love my grandchildren”.

Isn’t that amazing?

Elly shares that Penny’s determination and motivation to communicate is incredible, and we are sure Penny will be able to continue to express herself in the months to come!

If you would like to book an appointment with Elly or another Speech Pathologist from Better Rehab, please call our friendly Admin team on 1300 0 REHAB (1300 073 422).