Chee Chzi Ching

• MBBS (NUMed Malaysia)
• Reviewing the evidence base for ‘total communication’ therapies for people with aphasia.

Aphasia is a communication difficulty, often resulting from stroke. It can affect an individual’s ability to speak, write, understand and read. When spoken production is severely affected, a therapy approach called ‘total communication’ is often used. This involves encouraging the use of gesture, drawing and writing. Whilst there is an evidence base for writing therapies, the literature on how to treat gesture and drawing is more limited. My project has given me the opportunity to carry out a literature research on studies targeting ‘total communication’. The studies were then summarised using an existing template which allowed detailed consideration of participants,  therapy approach and outcome. This short review has urged the need of a more comprehensive systematic review since there are variation in the results of different studies. Future studies on “total communication” should consider recruiting a larger population group to increase reliability of results. 

Funding source: Newcastle University

Supervisors: Dr Julie Morris and Dr Janet Webster