World Stroke Day 2021: New research aiding language recovery after stroke
World Stroke Day 2021 is an opportunity to highlight the important work being done by MSWA-funded researcher Associate Professor Anne Whitworth at Curtin University.
Associate Professor Whitworth’s team are developing a novel therapy approach for people with aphasia – a communication condition typically seen after stroke.
Known as NARNIA, the project teaches people with aphasia to combine the skills needed to talk and interact again in everyday situations.
“It is conceptually different to other approaches to aphasia treatment,” says Assoc. Prof. Whitworth, “a characteristic that we believe is critical to its early success with people after stroke, following head injury, and with certain progressive language disorders seen in dementia.”
Drawing on theories of how we tell stories, and expanding to everyday speaking situations, Assoc. Prof. Whitworth’s team has been developing NARNIA for 10 years.
More recently, MSWA Speech Pathologists have been assisting Anne’s team to develop and test an app that allows NARNIA therapy sessions to take place remotely: The NARNIA Communication App is one of the newly funded projects benefitting from our recent record-breaking $10 million research contribution.
On MSWA’s contribution to research, Tracey Hockey, who had a stroke in 2016, says:
“As an MSWA Client, it excites me to know that the care and information I'm receiving is new and cutting edge.
MSWA's funding makes sure that we with neuro conditions have the most up to date information, care and technology available. New ways of living, knowing, thinking and being.”
To learn more about the local researchers benefitting from MSWA support, head to the Commitment to Research page on our website.
As well as funding research, MSWA provides services and practical support after stroke.
If you or someone you love is living with the effects of a stroke, click here to find out how we may be able to support them.