Friends of Aphasia
Friends of Aphasia
Categories
Diseases, Disorders & Disciplines Patient & Family Support
About
At Friends of Aphasia, we are dedicated to truly changing the lives of individuals and families living with aphasia through the following endeavors:
- providing high-quality, patient-centered aphasia services, including a comprehensive aphasia group program, community support teams, and technology resources, to anyone who might benefit
- developing and implementing community education, advocacy, and outreach programs
- promoting research aimed at advancing innovative and effective aphasia treatment approaches
Through these efforts, we aim to give real hope to those struggling to speak, understand, read, and write.
Imagine losing, in an instant, your ability to communicate. Imagine struggling to say your name, write a simple email, or read the newspaper. These are realities for individuals living with aphasia.
If you are like most people, you’ve probably never heard the word aphasia. Aphasia is a communication disorder that robs individuals of their ability to speak, understand, read, and/or write. Typically, it results from a stroke, but it can also be caused by a traumatic brain injury, a brain tumor, a brain infection, or brain degeneration. Despite limited public awareness, aphasia is far from rare; it affects over two million Americans - over 6,000 people in Pima County alone. Those numbers continue to grow as our population ages and as medical advances increasingly save the lives of individuals who suffer strokes and other brain injuries. To help the growing number of people affected by this devastating disorder, former congresswoman Gabby Giffords and Speech-Language Pathologist Dr. Fabi Hirsch Kruse co-founded Friends of Aphasia (FoA).
FoA improves the lives of those living with aphasia, their families, and their communities by providing quality, person-centered aphasia services focused on re-engagement in meaningful life activities. FoA provides three areas of programming. Our Aphasia Group (AG) program offers structured, facilitated groups that address not only language and communication goals but life goals. The groups also provide much-needed community and camaraderie to individuals isolated by aphasia. Our Community-based Aphasia Support Team (CAST) program is a specialty program that extends into an individual’s community to build support teams. Through education and training, these teams learn how to support long-term communication recovery and re-engagement in life. Finally, our Tech-to-Talk program is our technology loaner program through which we provide loaner iPads and aphasia apps to individuals to support intensive practice of language skills at home.
