Parrot Software for patients suffering from Aphasia

Aphasia is a loss of the ability to produce and/or comprehend language, due to injury to brain areas specialized for these functions. It is not a result of deficits in sensory, intellect, or psychiatric functioning nor muscle weakness or a cognitive disorder.

Depending on the area and extent of the damage, someone suffering from aphasia may be able to speak but not write, or vice versa. Patients may display any of a wide variety of other deficiencies in language comprehension and production, such as being able to sing but not speak. Aphasia may be accompanied with speech disorders such as dysarthria or apraxia of speech, which may also result from brain injury.

Usually, aphasias are a result of brain damage (lesions) caused by head injury, to the language centers of the brain such as the Broca's area. These areas are almost always located in the left hemisphere, and in most people this is where the ability to produce and comprehend language is found. However, in a very small number of people, language ability is found in the right hemisphere. In either case, brain damage to these language areas can be caused by a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or other head injury. Aphasia may also develop slowly, as in the case of a brain tumor or progressive neurological disease. It may also be caused by a sudden hemorrhagic event within the brain. Certain chronic neurological disorders, such as epilepsy or migraine, can also include transient aphasia as a prodromal or episodic symptom.

Any of the following can be considered symptoms of aphasia:

• Inability to comprehend language
• Inability to pronounce, not due to muscle paralysis or weakness
• Inability to speak spontaneously
• Inability to form words
• Inability to name objects
• Poor enunciation
• Excessive creation and use of personal neologisms
• Inability to repeat a phrase
• Persistent repetition of phrases
• Paraphasia (substituting letters, syllables or words)
• Agrammatism (inability to speak in a grammatically correct fashion)
• Dysprosody (alterations in inflexion, stress, and rhythm)
• Uncompleted sentences
• Inability to read
• Inability to write

Parrot Software has been developed to stimulate the use of the brain throughout repetitive memory challenges, and speech therapies. These treatments frequently help to re-build memory, and speech function by working the brain therapeutically. Parrot Software has proven great success in redeveloping for Communication, Memory, Attention, Speech, and Cognitive Rehabilitation