Expressive Aphasia

They serve as pillars of wisdom and guidance while exhibiting communication adroitness with care teams and patients to engineer top-notch medical care. To maintain high standards, effective medical professionals are constantly taking in new information through continuing education, placing providers at the pinnacle of knowledge. Moreover, physicians require affective aptitude as they must convey empathy during patient interactions. All these attributes draw me to seek the personal challenge and resulting responsibilities that are demanded. I desire to become an important contribution to society in a field I am passionate

My interest in medicine first stemmed from my freshman Biology class and my Nutrition class. I was intrigued by our studies of cells, genetics, and disease. Both courses incited a sense of awe and curiosity within me. Dissecting a frog, was the stepping-stone for my interest in medicine. Seeing the frog's heart made me wonder how the human heart worked. My research into the human heart inspired me to learn more about the medical field. I sought out volunteer opportunities that would give me insight into a doctor’s typical day. During my volunteer experience, I learned that as a doctor you experience many obstacles, including patient compliance and insurance approval issues. In my journey to pursue medicine, I learned that becoming a doctor means more than helping people, it means being the team leader, being compassionate, and most importantly being committed to the patient’s well being.

Aphasia is a communication disorder that affects many adults and families. Aphasia occurs as a result of damage to the language-specific areas of the brain (ASHA, 2014). Individuals with aphasia may experience difficulties with oral language, receptive language, memory, attention writing, and reading. There are a myriad of approaches designed for the treatment of aphasia. Two treatment approaches, Promoting Aphasics Communicative Effectiveness (P.A.C.E.) and Constraint Induced Language Therapy (C.I.L.T.), and their efficacy in regard to available evidence will be discussed below.

The medical field is a career path that brings about many options and opportunities of great value. The noble idea of being a doctor tends to cloud the diligent studying and precise training that is actually required for this career. I have wanted to become a doctor since a very young age, and now that the opportunity is here for the taking, I have fully researched what it takes to succeed in this profession and various specialties of the practice. The road to a medical degree is one filled with thousands of notes, years of schooling, and many stressful nights, but the reward is one incomparable to any other. Saving people’s lives on a day-to-day basis has been one of my dreams for as long as I can remember, so the rigorous curriculum

A key factor to most of the maladaptive behavior performed by individuals is the inability to get a message across for their wants and needs through language. A few of my clients were non-speaking when I first met them. Their way of communicating was by whining or directing their caregiver to the item he or she needed. Consequently, many of the client’s goals were focused on increasing communicative language. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend speech therapy with one of my clients. Being present in these therapies, I was able to learn certain techniques to increase language, as well as techniques for phonetics, to be able to understand the existing language the client had. On days the client did not have speech therapy, I implemented the programs into the in-home therapies to increase the exposure, in hopes for better results. I also utilized the skills I learned on the other non-speaking clients I worked with but, modified their usage to adapt to the necessity of each

There, I had the privilege of seeing an Early-Intervention Speech Therapist work with one of my students. She would sit on the floor and play games with him. Through these games, she was able to elicit verbalization from this child who normally grunted to communicate. Over a course of a year, I witnessed his communication skills enhance little-by-little with the assistance of this therapist. I had not realized how much he had improved until I saw him interacting with his friends at the dress-up center. This little boy who would once play alone on the floor was now requesting different objects and laughing with his friends. Recollecting his progress was phenomenal. Inspired by what I saw, I researched more about the field. While doing so, my mother disclosed to me that she and her father had an articulation disorder. Although my grandfather did not receive services, my mother received therapy in school, which she recalls as an unpleasant experience. Taking into account all that I witnessed and learned about the subject, I realized that I had found the middle ground between teacher and therapist that I had been searching for in Speech-Language Pathology.

Sundin, K., Jansson, L., & Norberg, A. (2000). Communicating with people with stroke and aphasia: understanding through sensation without words. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 9(4), 481-488.

Expressive (motor) Aphasia is a neurological condition that occurs when words cannot be formed, expressed, or may be absent due to an injury to the cerebral cortex. (Brooks & Brooks, 2012).

For as long as I could remember, I have seen my father rushing to the hospital in a white coat, answering pagers in the middle of important family conversations and attending night calls even in the most terrible weather. I had always wondered; what could be so important that it belittles every other responsibility in his life. It was only after many years of anguish and protests that it finally made sense to me. This defining moment of realization occurred when I first met a patient in his office. I saw how the gratitude in the patient’s eyes can provide a sense of fulfillment that triumphs all other feelings in the universe. It was human life that was most important. Being a doctor does not make you a mere healer but also gives you the responsibility of a caregiver. I had never felt more proud of my father and that was the day I felt the urge to relive this feeling many times over. It was there in that moment that I decided to pursue a career in medicine.

Mr. Zhao taught about the human body with such zeal and overwhelming passion, it encompassed me from day one. Though I had already planned on a being a pediatrician because I loved to care for kids, Mr. Zhao made actual medicine in relation to the human body another aspect of a health career to explore and love. You’re probably thinking, “Well yeah, you can’t just like people in the healthcare industry”, yet patient care, compassion, and sympathy play a definitive role in such a field. I’ve witnessed these elements of healthcare first-hand volunteering at Texas Children’s Hospital. I volunteered during the summer and do so now during the school year.

My work with my patients is defined by a deep level of empathy, kindness and compassion. My personal and professional experience has not only taught me how to appreciate but also how to provide patient-centered care through my experience of giving patient education, serving as a patient advocate and working in interdisciplinary teams. My educational background in Health Services as well as my professional experience in Respiratory care have illustrated my capability, enthusiasm and dedication to my work and patients. I intend to approach my studies in the Physician Assistant program as i have all other challenges in my life: with a strong sense of commitment and

Expressive aphasia is the loss of ability to convey one’s thoughts through speech or writing. A patient with expressive aphasia knows what they want to say but have trouble finding the words that is needed to state what they mean. Some of the symptoms that is shown by a person with expressive aphasia are slow speech, spelling or grammatical errors, have trouble getting certain

I quickly recognized I wanted to practice medicine as part of a team and under supervision. However, I still desired sufficient independence with extensive and in-depth training. With this in mind, I began forming opinions about the various careers in healthcare until I came across the PA profession. By shadowing Araya, a PA, at a clinic, I observed how she provided sensitive and comprehensive care to the patients. She took time to explain to the patients their diagnoses in a warm, personable,and comforting attitude, which were all personality traits that I possess. I was extremely pleased of the lengths the PA went to in order to make the patient feel included and taken care of. Prior to this experience, I knew I wanted to construct strong relationships with my future patients and understand and treat patients as a whole. Not only was this palpable within the care Araya provided to her patients, but I now have the opportunity to build relationships with patients as a healthcare volunteer at Jamati Clinic by listening attentively to their main concerns as well as their outlook on their

JR has mild, fluent, anomic aphasia. People with fluent aphasia have difficulties understanding spoken and written language, but expression is mostly within normal limits (Robb, 2014). JR has difficulties naming certain words, often nouns. For example, she was having trouble naming ‘Riverstone’, a restaurant, so instead she said “Dot’s (the owner) place near the Waitaki River”. She mainly communicates verbally, but is not afraid to show us something using her body if she cannot express what she would like using words. For example, she has an oddly shaped ball in her living room which we asked about. She then demonstrated to us how she uses the

In addition to scholastic achievement, well rounded physicians have plenty of life experiences. They have fought through tragedies, yet find reasons to smile. They demonstrate success and leadership in spite of past failures. Their story may not be glamorous, but they consistently overcome obstacles that would stifle others. Their drive and determination defines who they are. The physician that emphasizes the well being of others over personal gain, that is the physician I plan to be. My path towards becoming a physician has been difficult in order to shape me into a more complete person. These past experiences allow me to sympathize, empathize, and more supportive of patients in the primary care setting. I feel the need to use my personal