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Speech, language and communication difficulties
A guide for patients and carers
Speech difficulties: Medical and surgical treatment
Drugs are now used to successfully treat many disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, and this can have a beneficial effect on speech. Where drug treatment is appropriate, speech and language therapy can maximise its impact on speech. Surgery may also benefit some dysarthric speakers. The speech and language therapist will work closely with the ENT doctors to evaluate whether this would be helpful. Occasionally, neurosurgery may be able to repair some nerve damage caused by previous operations, and the speech and language therapist will liaise with the surgeons to discuss this possibility. However, both drug treatment and surgery are effective in improving dysarthria in only a minority of cases.
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Contents
- Introduction
- What is communication?
- Why do neurological disorders affect communication?
- Language difficulties: What is language?
- Language difficulties: What is aphasia?
- Language difficulties: Speech and language for people with aphasia
- Language difficulties: Recovery
- Language Difficulties: Progressive aphasia
- Language difficulties: Personal experiences of aphasia
- Language difficulties: What can you do to help a person with aphasia communicate?
- Speech difficulties
- Speech difficulties: How is speech affected in people with neurological disorders?
- Speech difficulties: Speech and language therapy for people with dysarthria
- Speech difficulties: Medical and surgical treatment
- Speech difficulties: Personal experiences
- Speech difficulties: What can you do to help communication?
- Other communication problems
- Further reading
- Other organisations that may be able to help
