Bruce Willis was diagnosed with the condition
Americans have aphasia, and almost 180,000 develop the disorder annually. Although it’s most common in older people, who are at greater risk of health events like strokes, it can affect people at any age. “It can be catastrophic,” says Swathi Kiran, director of the Aphasia Research Laboratory at Boston University. “Not being able to say a full sentence, or saying a sentence where the words sound garbled, is extremely frustrating.
That can lead to social isolation, one of the most emotionally painful potential consequences of aphasia. Patients often know exactly what they’d like to say but may have no way to express it, says Kiran. People with aphasia may need to change their lives dramatically to cope, such as giving up their careers and finding new ways to communicate with loved ones.
How well patients recover depends on factors like the severity of the disorder and the way it developed. For some patients, it can even go away completely—like it reportedly did after about a week for, who developed the disorder after having a brain aneurysm. In other cases, however, patients will continue to cope with symptoms for the rest of their lives. Symptoms in people with primary progressive aphasia, for example, typically continue to get worse, says Kiran.
Kiran says there are also promising clinical trials for aphasia, including treatments that stimulate the brain with electricity. Research suggests that treatment can even slow down aphasia in patients with progressive disorders, which is why it’s key that people with aphasia and their loved ones don’t give up, says Kiran. “It’s long and hard, but there’s definitely a road to recovery,” she says.Patience is paramount.
Consistently communicating with someone who has aphasia can be essential for helping them to improve and to ward off social isolation. “Every practice they get—whether it’s watching TV together, or drinking a cup of coffee and chatting—is therapy for the brain, and it definitely impacts the outcomes in a positive way,” says Kiran. “What family members have to understand is that they need to support the patient through the recovery process, and never give up.