Virginia man with aphasia battled to regain his speech

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- The sequence of events that would cost Craig Robertson his powers of speech began in June 1991, while he was jet-skiing with a nephew perched on his shoulders.

No one's certain whether he had a brain aneurysm and then crashed into the water, or whether the trauma of the crash caused the aneurysm.

Whatever the case, Robertson slammed into the water, where he lay unconscious, before his wife and brother-in-law dove in and revived him. They took him to a hospital, where he underwent an examination that found nothing wrong. The doctors sent him home.

Robertson, now 53 and living in Alexandria , Va. , recuperated at home for five days. "Then my wife came home from work one day, and I didn't know her," he said. "I didn't know her."

He went to another hospital, where doctors quickly diagnosed the aneurysm. He had immediate surgery to stop the bleeding in his brain.

A day and a half later, Robertson suffered a stroke. "From that, I didn't talk or anything," he said.

Robertson, who was suffering from aphasia, could understand most of what was said to him, but his ability to speak was ruined. It didn't work at all at first, and then when he spoke, nonsense came out.

Initially, he communicated with a small blackboard and chalk. "I didn't spell really well, either, but that was the only way to communicate," he said.

After three months of rehabilitative therapy, Robertson could put together very simple sentences that generally got his point across.

It took about two and a half years for him to become fluent again.

He's come a long way since then: His speech is clear these days, and easily understood.

Sometimes, though, he'll hang on a word, unable to pull it up. "I have to be quiet for a minute, and it will come to me, usually," he said. "Or I'll use another word to explain the same thing."

Talking about emotional subjects can make his speech halting, each word a struggle. But other than that, he describes his speech as at "98 percent."

"Some people don't even realize what's happened to me," he said.

When asked what people can do for a friend or relative stricken with aphasia, Robertson suggested becoming a real chatterbox, "a lot of talking right off."

You also shouldn't shy away from stepping in if someone with aphasia uses the wrong word or is not understandable, he added.

"When they say the wrong word, correct them," Robertson said. "It's a good way for them to practice the correct choice and pronunciation of words."

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