Neurológia pre prax 6/2012

Are the diagnostic tests used in clinical practice able to detect impaired communication ability in patients with a gradually increasing organic brain damage?

Speech intervention pushes its boundaries. The diagnostic, therapy and prevention of speech and language disorders get from the word-level to the text and context level. It also focuses on the intervention of the cognitive-communication deficits. The research at the Department of Neurosurgery in Bratislava on 16 patients with low-grade gliomas showed that such a shift in speech therapy intervention in practice is very necessary. Administration of diagnostic tools only on level of words would not revealed a deficit of context in half of patients and in three patients would not be revealed a cognitive deficit. Ignoring these deficits would make the speech and language therapy for patients ineffective and in many cases unsuccessful.

Keywords: communication disorder, diagnostics, gliomas, cognitive-communication disorder, discourse.