Speech pathology role in dementia communication
Speech pathology may improve the ability of people with dementia to remember the right words to use in conversations, according to Queensland researchers.
Speech pathology may improve the ability of people with dementia to remember the right words to use in conversations, according to Queensland researchers.
A new study, which is based on evidence that people with dementia can re-learn words through speech pathology treatment, aims to encourage the use of re-learned words into everyday conversation, improving dementia patients’ communication skills and their quality of life.
Researchers will use traditional single word picture naming tasks alongside interactive tasks designed to enable people with dementia to transfer the words through to their conversations.
Speech pathology researcher Dr Erin Conway, a speech pathology lecturer at Australian Catholic University, and her research colleagues based at The University of Queensland and Bond University, says the study aims to provide positive evidence for the use of speech pathology treatment in progressive aphasia and dementia.
The project involves a speech pathologist working with participants in their own homes for an eight week period to discover whether one on one treatment can assist people with dementia to improve their conversation.
“There has been more research in the past about aphasia, which is difficulties of language often following a stroke, this is a non-progressive condition, where there’s evidence showing that we can improve their skills,” she says.
“There’s now a growing field of research in speech pathology around how we can treat things like naming and word retrieval in people with dementia – there’s starting to be some positive evidence that we can help.
“This project is a small step towards changing speech pathology practice for people with dementia and hopefully being able to advocate for our services within dementia care,” she says.
“For the profession itself, we as speech pathologists encourage the use of evidence based practice, so having that research evidence to support clinical decision making is very important.”
The project, funded under Alzheimer’s Australia’s Dementia Research Foundation through the Hazel Hawke Alzheimer’s Research and Care Fund, is now in the data collection phase.
Dr Conway, who has family history around dementia, claims she understands the frustration people can get when they start to lose that ability to converse.
“I thought this was a nice opportunity to see if we could do something about that,” she says.
Dr Conway is also involved in a research focused communication in dementia training program which is working with aged care nurses, assistants in nursing and home carers in communicating with dementia patients.
Contact Dr Erin Conway to find out more about the research.
