Assessment of quality of life in patients with aphasia

Abstract

Introduction: Personal satisfaction (Quality of Life; QoL) is the person's impression of their own prosperity. Aphasia is the most significant likely result of stroke and profoundly affects a patient's life, causing enthusiastic pain, sadness, and social separation, because of loss of language capacities.

Objective: To document personal satisfaction in patients with aphasia.

Materials & Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted at a Speech Clinic from October 2018 to March 2019 on 57 patients of aphasia to assess their quality of life. Informed consent was taken from respondents. Patients having aphasia due to any neurological cause or traumatic brain injury were included in study, while patients having childhood aphasia were excluded. Standardized questionnaire “Measuring changes in Quality of life in persons with aphasia: Is Communication Confidence a good measure?” was used to obtain information from participants through purposive sampling. Data were collected by face to face interviews with patients and their caregivers. Descriptive data analysis was done through SPSS.

Results: Majority (68.42%) of respondents did not feel confident about their ability to convey meaning via speech with people. Difficulties in social communication were also a reason of concern for 45.61% participants, whereas 50.87% participants stated that they could not make their decisions.

Conclusion: Patients suffering from aphasia had low quality of life, mainly due to their communication disabilities and dependence on other people for understanding, as well as the fact that their caretakers had to take decisions for them.