Home services in social speech-language pathology for people with aphasia and their family

Abstract

People with aphasia (PWA) and their loved ones claim that one of their biggest needs is to develop efficient means to communicate better “together”. Researchers suggest that conversation partner training (CPT), a training for a PWA and a loved one aiming to use communication strategies in conversations, would be most promising regarding this need (e.g. Simmons-Mackie et al., 2010). The purpose of this presentation is to report the development and the home services organisation of the social speech-language pathology part of the “service aux proches d’une personne aphasique” (SAPPA; services to caregivers of a person with aphasia). The SAPPA is a service offered by the Association québécoise des personnes aphasiques (AQPA) and financed by the APPUI aux aidants–Montréal. It allows PWA and their family living on the Montreal Island to receive free home service in CPT given by a speech-language pathologist trained to this approach. The organisation of SAPPA will be briefly described. Criteria used to evaluate public health services in Québec will be employed to evaluate the quality of SAPPA and the issues encountered: services accessibility (accessibility; equity of access), services quality (effectiveness; security; responsiveness; continuity) and resources optimisation (efficiency; viability). Attuned services to the needs of PWA and their loved ones were developed. Thanks to the support of AQPA–Montréal and our research team, this type of services is now developing elsewhere in Quebec.