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Rotman Research Institute: Year In Review 2017-2018

Baycrest Health Sciences & Baycrest Foundation Publications

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12 ROTMAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE Aphasia is a language disorder in which people face great difficulty producing or even comprehending speech – whether it's something they want to say, something they hear, or something they read. Individuals lose the words needed to communicate. People can develop aphasia after a stroke or from a rare dementia, known as primary progressive aphasia (PPA), which takes away a person's language capabilities first, before other cognitive skills. Through her research, Dr. Regina Jokel hopes to preserve and boost the language abilities of these individuals. Dr. Jokel, a Speech-Language Pathologist at Baycrest and Clinician Associate at the RRI, created the first individual and group language interventions for patients with PPA and their family members. These programs have been implemented at Baycrest's Sam and Ida Ross Memory Clinic, and at healthcare organizations across Ontario and Sydney, Australia. TAPPING INTO BRAIN STIMULATION TO BOLSTER TREATMENTS There has been encouraging evidence found when using brain stimulation to treat neurological disorders. To boost the interventions' effects, Dr. Jokel has partnered with Dr. Jed Meltzer to study a combined treatment regimen of brain stimulation with a PPA intervention. Recently, the team tested this unique approach with stroke patients who suffered from aphasia and found promising results: Individuals with the combined treatment showed significantly greater language improvements and signs of "rewiring" within the brain. With support from the Alzheimer's Association and Brain Canada, Drs. Jokel and Meltzer have focused their efforts on testing their treatment with PPA clients. Recent upgrades to the brain stimulation equipment – featuring both magnetic and electrical forms of stimulation – will help researchers pinpoint ideal locations to stimulate and better understand how to reverse the pathological processes that impair language and memory abilities in dementia and other brain disorders. Everyone has experienced the frustration of not being able to find the right word to describe something. There is a great deal of satisfaction when the word finally comes to mind. But for some individuals with brain disorders, that word never comes back. Recovering the ability to communicate Visit us online to learn more about Dr. Regina Jokel and other RRI clinician associates here.

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