When Bruce Willis, an action movie star known for his way with words, started to lose his language skills, it made news. He had aphasia.
“Aphasia is specific to language. So your ability to express yourself with the words that you want to find, sentences that you need to put together, those types of impairments can also affect your ability to understand language,” said Cathy Torrington Eaton, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at UT Health San Antonio.
Eaton is an expert in aphasia, which can quickly seize a person’s independence and identity.
She’s leading a study to determine effective strategies for communicating with a person with aphasia. Her students try different techniques.
“They slowed their pace of speaking. They wrote words down. They rephrased or repeated themselves. They asked yes no questions. Multiple choice questions,” she said. “There was always a whiteboard in front of them so that an individual could write a word or draw a picture.”
Eaton said people with aphasia leave these interactions feeling heard.
“People that come in just deflated individuals and then walking or sitting up in their wheelchair – whatever it is – walking straighter,” she said. “So it's quite the transformation when people are heard.”
Eaton also leads the San Antonio Network for Aphasia, a program for people with aphasia and their loved ones that meets monthly.
Science & Medicine is a collaboration between TPR and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, about how scientific discovery in San Antonio advances the way medicine is practiced everywhere.
