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Sep 18, 2008 10:00 pm US/Central
New Dallas Treatment Helping Stroke Patients Speak
DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
Survivors say it feels like they're trapped in their own bodies, unable to communicate with the outside world. But research being done right here in North Texas is offering some promising new hope to stroke patients.
Shawn Doyle was a businessman who had been the vice president of several companies. According to his wife, Susan, he was preparing for a big presentation when something went wrong.
"I got a phone call about 7:15 and they said Shawn had fallen and hit his head, and he couldn't talk and he couldn't walk," Susan explained.
Shawn suffered a major stroke brought on by a tear in his carotid artery. He spent three weeks in intensive care before being moved to a rehabilitation facility. Just nine weeks after his stroke, Shawn was up walking again and was allowed to go home.
"We came home from the hospital with a wheelchair, but you know stubbornness and perseverance, it never came out of the trunk," Susan remembers.
It's been five years since the stroke, but Shawn still has trouble forming words and speaking. Despite undergoing the traditional speech therapies currently offered to stroke patients, Shawn's only been able to say a few words. He and his family were forced to learn to communicate through body language and by writing things down.
"I miss him. Okay well he's right here, but I miss just that conversation and my best friend being able to talk," Susan said of her husband.
Dr. William Katz with theUniversity of Texas at Dallas School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences says it takes a lifetime to really overcome a stroke. He and a team of researchers from Dallas and Pittsburgh are looking at an experimental new treatment to help stroke victims learn to speak again.
"Shawn absolutely knows what he wants to say, but the bridge is washed out," his wife explains. "Making that sound, making that word is the hard part."
Dr. Katz along with his colleagues at the Pittsburgh VA Medical Center created a type of helmet that surrounds the patient's head with a magnetic field. A coil is taped to the patient's tongue and is then tracked through the magnetic field by a computer. The track shows up as a series of lines on the screen sitting in front of the patient.
"It's kind of a fancy way of showing the patient where their tongue is in their mouth while they speak," says Dr. Katz.
As Shawn begins to speak, he can see how his tongue moves by following the track. The clinician marks a target on the screen for Shawn to hit, and as he says a word correctly, he's able to see what his tongue movement should be.
"It's not just the repetition per se," says Dr. Katz. "It's the repetition under visual feedback condition that in this particular experiment seems to be giving them the boost."
Shawn says he loved the treatment and was really excited about doing it. Both he and his wife say it made a big difference. "Over time, it's funny all of a sudden we'll be at dinner, and he'll say butter. It'll come out of no where," says Susan.
"We've seen some pretty remarkable results in some patients and some pretty puzzling patterns in other patients," Dr. Katz explains.
The Doyles hope the treatment, along with other speech therapies, will help Shawn talk more. "I absolutely believe that the healing continues. You just have to work at it."
Dr. Katz says the first three-year study will be completed in December, and depending on the findings, this type of technology could be in rehab clinics in a few years.
All of the research is being conducted at the Callier Center for Communication Disorders. For more information on the center, click here.
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