Reading after stroke

Dyslexia or the inability to read can be one of the possible complications experienced after suffering a stroke. It can occur even with the preservation of speech function or ability to write.

Difficulties in perceiving the text significantly limits the person’s ability to read. The process of reading becomes extremely tedious and requires a lot of effort. However, many patients are able to overcome dyslexia after a certain time:

• restoration of the ability to read can occur spontaneously,
• improvement can be achieved through regular training,
• dyslexia can be compensated

Below are some approaches and exercises that can be used for rehabilitation to treat dyslexia after a stroke.

Dyslexia

The manner in which the inability to read will manifest itself depends on which areas of the brain were affected by the stroke and on how the initial reading ability of the patient is organized. The left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for most of the language functions, but the right hemisphere can also influence the ability to read to some extent. Therefore, even in case of extensive damage to the left hemisphere, it is possible to partially restore the ability to read by using the right hemisphere of the brain.

For most patients, reading aloud after a stroke is harder than reading mutely. This is explained by the fact that most patients have difficulty reproducing words and speech in general, which are used when reading aloud. In some patients, on the contrary, the perception of written words is harder than hearing them. Dyslexia can manifest itself in different ways: patient can perceive better individual words, but hardly understand the sentence or vice versa.

Compensation for lost ability

If a person can perceive information by hearing, modern technologies can convert some types of information into audio or video format: there are audio books and special programs that reproduce the scanned text.

Many daily activities can also be made possible without reading. For example, when you visit a store, instead of the shopping list you can take with you cutouts of goods with their logos or labels.

Rehabilitation

Therapy can greatly improve the patient's ability to read. However, the recovery process is extremely difficult. The best exercises for each particular patient should be selected individually by a qualified specialist who has been trained to restore one’s reading ability. Many exercises and techniques require the patient to work independently.

Below are the tips that may be helpful to treat dyslexia after a stroke.

• Pronunciation of individual letters. In this exercise, patients need to pronounce not the names of the letters (according to the alphabet), but rather sounds, for example, not "es", but "ssss", not "er", but "rrrr". After having success at pronouncing letters, you can switch to their combinations "tch", "pr", "mirr" and so on. When progress is achieved, you can switch to practicing words by reading syllables first. As a guide, you can use the school language textbook of lower grades - there are many exercises on word formations, prefixes, the roots of words that can be used for reading.
• Reading by letters. In some cases, patient can understand the word, if he/she hears it, so when reading he/she needs to say aloud individual letters, because understanding of the word can come from hearing. A separate word must be divided into letters and patients need to try to pronounce each sound in succession. A patient may need to repeat one word several times. Then, the probability is high that the sequence of pronounced sounds will be similar to the correct pronunciation and will be understandable for the semantic perception by other people.
• Visual memorization of words in writing. If patient can not read the whole word, it is advisable to memorize the words according the their image. Thus, when reading, the word will be recognized. For this purpose, illustrations of objects with captions can be used. Such pairs (image + word) can be found in newspaper headings, various illustrated magazines and on many Internet sites. There are special audio and video recordings where an image is linked to each word and/or where the word is pronounced aloud.
• Focus developing exercise. In some cases, it becomes difficult to read when the person can not focus his/her vision on the sentence and constantly loses sentences in the text. In this case, tracking of the text by a finger helps. It is also useful to increase the spacing of the line, then divide the text into paragraphs and use other elements of the layout.

The effectiveness of these exercises varies greatly in each case. To develop the most effective treatment program it is better to consult a specialist.

Also see other articles on this topic:

• Magnesium for the prevention of stroke
• Magnetic stimulation after a stroke
• Mutation of the gene as a risk factor for stroke

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