Stroke Patients

Easy way to remember:

Dysarthria: Slurred Speech. Lip, tongue, and throat weakness from the inability of the cranial nerves to communicate.

Aphasia: Actual difficulty using speech from a direct brain insult. (Spoken/Written) This deficit is characterized by expressive: production of words, receptive: comprehension. This is different from a dysarthria where the patient understands and can produce speech.

One of the easiest exams with high yield information is the MEND exam. Pick up a copy of the new Advanced Stroke Life Support manual produced by The Gordon Center for Research In Medical Education.

Aphagia is an inability to swallow.

We use the NIH Stroke Scale and a bedside swallow screen. All the nurses in the unit and the ER are trained in this. If your facility is not stroke certified, it should have some sort of protocol in place for these situations. I would speak to your nurse educator regarding the confusion.

The NIHSS:

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/doctors/NIH_Stroke_Scale.pdf

Aphasia can be expressive, receptive or both. In expressive the patient has trouble expressing his thoughts, receptive trouble understanding language he receives from others or written material

Dysarthria: is difficulty speaking, physically, damage to the nerves that control speech.

We use the NIH stroke scale for testing.