Residual speech impairment in patients with traumatic brain injury

Rehabilitation of patients with traumatic brain injury is a challenge for whole rehabilitation team (especially for speech and language pathologist). There is a general agreement that individual who suffer head injury may exhibit communication deficit either in the form of speech disorders (dysarthria) or language disorders (subclinical aphasia). Although head injured patients recover basic language skill within the first six months post-injury, they continue to show deficits in the analysis and synthesis of expressive and receptive language. Acoustical correlates of speech in patients with traumatic brain injury have received minimal attention in research literature. We examined the residual speech impairment in patients with traumatic brain injury even after 3 yrs post trauma, using ten simple sentences in Marathi. Subjects were asked to read the sentences, which were recorded digitally. Acoustical as well as perceptual analysis was carried out. The scores were compared with healthy controls. Patients showed deviated results compared to healthy controls except intensity parameters. Duration of word was lengthened in the patients with traumatic brain injury. Vowel quadrangle was shrunken as compared to healthy controls. Though the difference was not statistically significant, the milder deviations in speech of patients with TBI were affecting the results in perceptual evaluation. Patient with traumatic brain injury need long term therapy in terms of their speech and language is concerned. The study concludes that TBI patients continued to have prosodic as well as articulatory deviations (compared to healthy controls) even after 3 years after trauma.