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Healthy Aging By Sharon Johnson Dauntless senior adapts to aphasia Mae Petersen tracked me down in a church parking lot. She indicated later that she had been stalking me for weeks. She was a woman with a mission. With her cherubic face and gentle manner, she seemed like an unlikely assailant, but she was clearly after something. Mae wanted a column about aphasia, a medical condition that has personally changed her life and the lives of more than one million other Americans. And she wanted it now � during National Aphasia Awareness Month. Aphasia (uh-fay- zhuh) draws bewildered looks from most people when you say the word. Rehabilitation literature defines it as a loss of language or a reduction in language skills due to brain injury. It usually occurs after a stroke, but may also happen as the result of a head trauma. The person with aphasia has great difficulty retrieving the appropriate or desired word and may have difficulty organizing words into a sentence. Each case of aphasia is different, just as each person is different. According to Cynthia Jones and Janis Lorman, authors of a guide to help patients and families deal with the condition, "a person knows what they want to say, but the words don�t come out right." Mae�s aphasia resulted from a stroke in 1998. She describes the past several years as "very challenging," a frustrating whole-life challenge. Her aphasia was initially diagnosed as one of the more severe forms, Broca�s aphasia. It was suggested to Mae and her family that she might have an extremely limited number of words at her disposal. Mae did not find the diagnosis acceptable. She worked vigilantly with her physician and speech therapists. She did daily word exercises; she practiced taking deep cleansing breaths and carefully focused on each word before she spoke it. Mae took as her motto the phrase on the little card that she and other people with the condition carry. "I have aphasia, give me time to communicate." Throughout the long and difficult process, Mae relished little victories and fondly recalls how useful it was to her to decide to use the word "icebox" when she had become totally frustrated with her inability to pronounce "re-frig-er-a-tor." She chuckles in remembering the reactions of her children when she said something totally outlandish, in her attempt to find and use the right word. Those caring children (she has eight) may explain, in part, her successful management of this condition. Like many people who manage unanticipated medical conditions well, Mae has folders (make that piles) of information on aphasia. She has read the information carefully and she understands it. She is adept at explaining her still-deliberate speech patterns. When she cannot find the right word, it is stressful for her. But with several head-shaking little smiles at her own inaccurate pronunciations, she keeps on trying. I am pleased that Mae tracked me down. I admire her strength. I did not ask her specifically, but I suspect the last words that Mae Petersen might want me to write in this column, which she orchestrated, might be: "You can get a free aphasia awareness kit by calling 1-800-922-4622." Sharon Johnson is an assistant professor in family and community development at OSU Extension and a member of the Senior Advisory Council. Reach her at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.