I had a stroke in the pons which contains the bridge to the cerebellum which controls coordination. Poor coordination of my lips, cheeks, and tongue made my speech severely slurred (dysarthria). The good news is that I never lost the ability to understand what people were saying. The bad news is that people could not understand me. 
Not being able to control my breathing made speaking difficult. To speak you have to let your breath out slowly. At first I would exhale explosively in one big gasp. I had to take extra breaths to finish even one sentence. I gradually regained the ability to say more before running out of breath. It is still tiring to speak in a group because I have to take deep breaths to be heard. Thankfully people never have trouble understanding me on the telephone. I speak into an ear bud so I never have to raise my voice which requires more air.My dysarthria has never fully disappeared. When I am tired my speech is still somewhat slurred. homeafterstroke.blogspot.com
I had this too. Now, I only slur my words when I'm exhausted. I do "run out of air" sometimes, especially when I'm on the phone. I have always had a loud voice and was surprised when they kept telling me in speech therapy that I was talking too quietly. That was a first. I spent quite abit of time doing "singing" exercises to help my voice/speech. I still can't sing, but I can talk and be understood....most of the time anyway. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information. I have met one or two stroke survivors who obviously didn't have aphasia but had problems producing speech. Now I understand more about what might be going on.
ReplyDeleteI find when I'm tired words never come out right. When I'm really tired my words are gibberish. Taking deep breaths helps.
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