Aphasia Center of Tucson helps patients regain talk, laughter, life DEBE CAMPBELL AJP Editorial Assistant
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ARIZONA JEWISH POST, June 15, 2018
Photo: Debe Campbell
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ormer U.S. congressional representative and Tucson resident Gabrielle Giffords brought aphasia into the public eye during recovery from the 2011 mass shooting at her “Congress on Your Corner” event in northwest Tucson. Two million people in the United States have aphasia, a communication disorder, but 84.5 percent of Americans say they have never heard the term aphasia. National Aphasia Awareness Month each June strives to change that. Aphasia can rob individuals of their ability to speak, understand language, read and write. The cause is damage to the language areas of the brain, typically as the result of stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain tumor, infection or degeneration. In Giffords’ case, it was a gunshot to the head. The Aphasia Center of Tucson guided and continues to guide Giffords’ path to recovery of her ability to speak. Fabi Hirsch, Ph.D., directs the center, with more than 20 years of experience as a certified speech-language pathologist. Supporting the challenge is a significant rank of devoted volunteers, graduate students and patient family members. Jewish community member Suzy Gershman is among those volunteers. She came to the center at the side of her
Volunteers at the Aphasia Center of Tucson practice a memory game with Director Fabi Hirsch (right).
friend and neighbor Giffords. Accompanying and participating with Giffords in therapy, Gershman became interested in the work and stayed on at the center as a volunteer. “It’s fun, the people are lovely, and it’s a family atmosphere,” she says. “This really helps people communicate,” she adds, referring to the group and individual therapy sessions. The center offers 6- and 12-week semester group pro-
grams, twice weekly for three hours each. Group work includes conversation and word challenges, numbers, reading, listening to and discussing TED talks, and brain stretching exercises. Participants include attorneys, professors, mechanics, computer programmers, retirees, and even a weatherman. It is a wide spectrum of people from all socioeconomic, ethnic and educational backgrounds,