Functional Strategies to Enhance Auditory Comprehension of Persons with Aphasia for Neurologic Physical Therapists

For persons with aphasia, the multiple conversations, noise, and other distractions in physical therapy settings pose challenges for comprehension of spoken messages, Failure by these patients to comprehend the instructions, directions, and other information from the neurologic physical therapist may negatively affect the outcome of the treatment session. There is a substantial body of empirical research on auditory comprehension of aphasic and nonaphasic individuals indicating that certain compensatory strategies can be used by neurologic physical therapists to enhance the comprehension of their patients during physical therapy. This article presents some functional strategies for maximizing auditory comprehension for use by neurologic physical therapists when providing physical therapy to stroke patients with aphasia and other brain-injured clients.