Social Skills
Social skills may also be a focus of rehabilitation after a brain injury. Clinicians work with patients on speech, personality, and behavioral changes.
Speech changes
After a brain injury, a patient may experience problems with speech, depending on which part of the brain has been affected by the injury.
Speech changes may include:
- Aphasia: Aphasia affects a person’s abilities to understand spoken and written words and sentences, recall words, and formulate sentences. It does not affect someone’s level of intelligence, or the ability to hear and think. Aphasia can be like trying to learn and use a foreign language when living in a foreign country. It can be very frustrating to both the patient and their caregivers.
- Dysarthia: With dysarthia, the patient can think of what to say, but is unable to speak correctly because of problems with the muscles used to form words and speak. The patient’s speech may be slurred and slow.
- Prosodic dysfunction: This involves problems with intonation or inflection. The patient may have problems changing the tone of voice, which can affect things like irony, sarcasm, or emotional meaning.
A speech-language pathologist works with patients to improve their communication and cognitive abilities.
Behavioral medicine
Behavioral medicine provides psychological services to patients and their families at the request of the physician. Typical reasons for referral include:
- adjustment issues
- depression or anxiety
- history of drug or alcohol abuse
- psychological and psychiatric history
- behavioral problems
- patient and family education
Services can include:
- evaluation and assessment
- counseling for patients and families
- psychotherapy for patients and families
- stress management
- training
- consultation
- referral to outpatient psychological services
Consultation services
Sometimes a referral is made to help the treatment team understand and better serve a patient and their family. The patient and family may be interviewed, and the behavioral medicine specialist will provide feedback and direction to the treatment team.
Referral services
Some issues, including alcohol or drug abuse, are not treated while the patient is in inpatient rehabilitation. Behavioral medicine clinicians will assist in finding treatment closer to home once the patient is discharged.