Oct 24, 2008 6:54 pm US/Eastern
'Stroke Helmet' Helps Patients Learn To Talk Again
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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An experimental new device is helping stroke victims learn how to speak again. A high-tech helmet creates a magnetic field around the patient's head, then a coil is taped to the tongue.
CBS
Stroke survivors say it feels like they're trapped in their own bodies, unable to communicate with the outside world. But a breakthrough device is offering new hope to stroke patients who simply want to speak again.
Imagine going from a well-spoken, upstanding business man, to a man who can barely form the words he so wishes to say.
Such is the case for Shawn Doyle, a stroke patient whose wife, Susan, was once "this brilliant man who's been the vice president of sale of many companies."
Shawn's life changed drastically in an instant.
"I got a phone call about 7:15 and they said Shawn had fallen and hit his head, and he couldn't talk and he couldn't walk," Susan recalls.
It's been five years since Shawn suffered the nearly-fatal stroke.
"The hard part with a stroke is that you never really know what you've got, and the doctors can't really tell you where you're going to end up," Susan says.
A few weeks after the stroke, and intensive physical therapy, Doyle was up and walking again. But years later, even with traditional speech therapies, he still couldn't talk.
"It's a lifetime cause to really overcome a stroke," says Dr. William F. Katz of the UTD Callier Center.
Now an experimental new is helping stroke victims learn how to speak again. A high-tech helmet creates a magnetic field around the patient's head, then a coil is taped to the tongue.
For Shawn, that meant a new chance to regain what he lost so many years ago.
As he begins to speak while using the helmet, he can see how his tongue moves by following the track on the screen. Patients get visual feedback when they say a word correctly, and hit the correct target in their mouths.
"We've seen some pretty remarkable results in some patients and some pretty puzzling patterns in other patients," says Katz.
Doyle participated in the study for one month. His wife noticed the difference.
"We'll be at dinner, and he'll say, 'Butter.' It'll come out of no where," she says.
The first three-year study on the stroke helmet will be completed in December. If the results are positive, the technology could be used in rehabilitation centers alongside traditional therapy in a few years.
Language impairment occurs in more than one-third of people who survive a stroke on the left side of their brain.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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