Today I spent the afternoon at the hospital with my mom. First she had her physical therapy. Then they had her meet with a speech therapist for an evaluation. Last week they had determined that she didn't need speech therapy. Turns out she needs it.
She is dealing with aphasia. The speech therapist said that it's not severe enough that it was noticed right away, but she definately has it. And it explains some concerns we have all had. Sometimes when I was in the room with her a nurse or doctor would come in and talk to her. Often if the questions they were asking got too complex, my mom would say, "I don't understand what you are saying." Also, my mom loves reading and she can't seem to do it. We wondered if it was because of the hemianopsia. But it's more than that. Good to know because now she can get help.
Her speech evaluation was very interesting. The therapist handed her a paper of simple sentences to read. My mom couldn't read them. Then the therapist starting writing words down on a paper that he was going to turn around and have her read. Simple words like dog, cat, hot, cold. She quickly read the words as he was writing them, so they were upside down to her. She read eight words and then got tired. So the therapist turned the paper around for her to read the words. Eventually she figured most of them out by carefully figuring out each letter. The therapist was just amazed at her ability to read the words upside down so quickly, but when they were rightside up she was having a difficult time. He said in twenty years of being a speech therapist, he has never seen that. Interesting.
In occupational therapy today she attempted to cook. It didn't go so well. My mom thought she did horribly but the therapist just said she shouldn't cook with heat for a while. It's just not safe for her to do.
