Voice of over 500,000 people with aphasia

There are more than 500,000 patients with aphasia in Japan

Aphasia makes it difficult for them to communicate with others

They have a lot of struggling in their daily lives

Despite of their desire, most of their rehabilitation could get terminated

Their struggles and difficulties are not reflected enough on either long-term care insurance or disability welfare system

Supports for the patients and their family are not adequate at all

It could be very confusing to how to address their needs, even for people in medical and welfare field,

In some occasions, others could hurt people with aphasia without realizing, due to their inappropriate way to interact with these patients

Some people with aphasia find themselves isolated due to their bitter experience in the past

We hope that more and more people gain enough knowledge about aphasia and have a clear understanding of their difficulties, which we think leads to the increase in their support and eventually to their own participation in society. In order to do so, we propose establishing “Day to think about aphasia”

About Aphasia 

Aphasia is one of the sequelae which makes it difficult for people to listen to, speak, read and write, due to the damage on the brain by stroke or head injury.

People with aphasia find it difficult to express their feeling or thoughts, which could hinder their ability of making their own decisions

Daily, they encounter difficulties communicating with others, which is one of the obstacles to going back to society.

Support or aids from their family is imperative, when it comes to using public transportation or going to the hospital. However, this matter is not recognized enough

Though they managed to go back in society, many of them are having hard time, due to the lack of adequate understanding in their workplace

About Rehabilitation 

It has been proved that aphasia can be improved over the long time of period

Since rehabilitation’s cost is not covered by the insurance, a lot of them don’t have the opportunity to have adequate rehabilitation.

These days, there are less and less opportunities for them to take speech and language therapy, where medical insurance can be applied

Even in the region where long-term care insurance can be applied, many of them cannot utilize this system, due to the lack of speech therapists. Also, this insurance does not support people with head injury if they are under 65 years old

Therefore, it is not easy for patients with aphasia to take rehabilitation during the time of recovery, regardless of their own wish.

Also, even if they regain language function, it is not necessarily guaranteed that this function will be maintained. For those who are not provided with the opportunities to communicate with others, it’s likely that they will lose those function again

We need to maintain the long-term rehabilitation, opportunity for patients to communicate and participate in the society, in order to help their recovery in language function

Social Resources 

On the survey of long-term care insurance, there is no questionnaire about disability with communication, such as aphasia.

Sometimes, surveyors lack their understanding of aphasia. In this case, all the surveys will be done verbally and carried out regardless of patients’ opinions.

The same things can be said to “Care-Plan”. In many cases, those plans are created without communicating with patients and sometimes, even language rehabilitations are not included in plans.

According to the disability welfare system, people with aphasia are considered to be disable people who lack their ability to pronounce, speak or swallow '' This means that if they can do daily-basis conversation, they are not qualified for a physical disability certificate.

In order to receive pension, they need to be people with disabilities who “have remarkable difficulties with pronouncing and speaking”, such as malfunction in producing sounds due to the cancer.