Is aphasia rehabilitation effective?

  The greatest spontaneous recovery from post-stroke aphasia occurs mostly in the first three to four weeks after stroke. Symptoms from permanent damage to brain tissue only become more stable as brain cell swelling and cerebral edema subside. Patients without speech therapy have a tendency to recover spontaneously within the first 3 months after onset. Spontaneous recovery proceeds at a decreasing rate, with minimal improvement in speech 6 months after onset. Some types of aphasia change with the passage of time. For example, some complete aphasias can change to mixed aphasias, and mixed aphasias can change to motor aphasias. Most commonly, auditory comprehension improves more readily than verbal expression.  Age of onset has a significant impact on the prognosis of aphasia. This may be related to the greater potential for mobilization of brain function the younger the person is, as well as the poorer prognosis in older adults with cerebral atherosclerosis and declining brain function. The time of starting treatment after the disease is an important factor affecting the prognosis. The earlier the linguistic treatment, the better the results, and it is best to start treatment within 1-2 months after the onset of the disease. The duration of treatment is an important factor in prognosis. Some studies have found that long-term treatment has a significant effect on the improvement of expression. Therefore, treatment for aphasia should be continued for several months or even years in order to provide the patient with more opportunities.  Speech therapy for aphasia involves targeted restorative training of impaired language processing modules, depending on the patient’s level of language processing impairment. In addition, transcranial direct current stimulation is a new technique that has been used internationally in recent years to treat aphasia, which can improve language function and shorten the language recovery process.