Communication Disorders, A Simple Guide To The Condition, Diagnosis, Treatment And Related Conditions

by Kenneth Kee

Overview

Disorders that impair a patient’s communication abilities are:
1. Voice,
2. Speech,
3. Language,
4. Hearing, and
5. Cognition.
Recognizing and treating communication disorders is important,
The failure to do so may result in:
1. Isolation,
2. Depression, and
3. Loss of independence.
Voice disorder
A voice disorder is present when the voice’s quality, pitch, or volume differs from that of other persons of similar age, culture, and geographic location.
1. Dysphonia is categorized as either an organic or a functional disorder of the larynx.
Speech Disorder
1. Dysarthria, another form of communication disorder, comprises a group of motor speech disorders caused by a disturbance in the neuromuscular control of speech.
2. Apraxia, a second form of motor speech disorder, happens in the presence of significant weakness or in-coordination of the muscles of speech production.
Language disorder
Aphasia is a language disorder that occurs from the damage to the areas of the brain responsible for language understanding and expression while a cognitive-communicative disorder impairs the ability to communicate by affecting the pragmatics (social rules) of language.
Chronic Voice Disorders
Chronic laryngitis is a prolonged hoarseness of voice which affects the vocal cords causing difficulty in talking and communicating speech to a nearby person.
Dementia
People with dementia have problem understanding or recognizing the words spoken to them and unable to express their thoughts to the caregiver or family members.
Hearing Loss
With hearing loss comes the inability to hear the spoken words and hence the ability to communicate with people. However the use of sign language is a way of communication for these sufferers.

Communication is a multi-dimensional dynamic process that permits human beings to interact with their environment.
By communication, people are able to express their thoughts, needs, and emotions.
Communication is a complicated process that requires cerebration (use of the brain), cognition (understanding of words), hearing, speech production, and motor coordination.
The assessment of a communication disorder is consideration of all components of the normal communication process.
Language is the ability to transform thoughts into meaningful symbols that can be communicated by speech, writing, or gestures.
Thoughts are arranged by the brain, particularly the left hemisphere, and encoded into a string according to learned grammatical and linguistic rules.
These rules control the way sounds are arranged (phonology), the meaning of words (semantics), how words are formed (morphology), how words are mixed into phrases (syntax), and the use of language in context (pragmatics).
Diagnosis and referral
A treatable medical disorder must be excluded in all patients with voice disorders.
A voice disorder may be one of the first symptoms of laryngeal cancer.
Patients should be referred to an otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat specialist) for specialized examinations, which may be peripheral oral and nasal examination, voice analysis, and indirect or fiberoptic laryngoscopy.
Once an organic disorder has been either treated or ruled out, the patient may be referred to a speech-language pathologist (SLP).
Treatment
Effective treatment of aphasia is based on the detailed knowledge of a patient's cognitive and linguistic strengths and weaknesses taken from the formal testing evaluations.
Conventional treatment methods were directed on syndrome-specific methods, in which treatment was based on the diagnosed aphasia syndrome.
Cognitive-communicative disorders require the ability to communicate by diminishing the pragmatics, or social rules, of language.

TABLE OF CONTENT
Introduction
Chapter 1 Communication Disorders
Chapter 2 Dysarthria
Chapter 3 Dysphonia
Chapter 4 Ataxia
Chapter 5 Aphasia
Chapter 6 Hoarse Voice
Chapter 7 Dementia
Chapter 8 Hearing Loss
Epilogue

Product Details

BN ID:	2940154522028
Publisher:	Kenneth Kee
Publication date:	08/22/2017
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	231 KB

About the Author

Medical doctor since 1972. Started Kee Clinic in 1974 at 15 Holland Dr #03-102, relocated to 36 Holland Dr #01-10 in 2009. Did my M.Sc (Health Management ) in 1991 and Ph.D (Healthcare Administration) in 1993. Dr Kenneth Kee is still working as a family doctor at the age of 65. However he has reduced his consultation hours to 3 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. He first started writing free blogs on medical conditions seen in the clinic in 2007 on http://kennethkee.blogspot.com. His purpose in writing these simple guides was for the health education of his patients which is also his dissertation for his Ph.D (Healthcare Administration). He then wrote an autobiolographical account of his journey as a medical student to family doctor on his other blog afamilydoctorstale.blogspot.com. This autobiolographical account “A Family Doctor’s Tale” was combined with his early “A Simple Guide to Medical Conditions” into a new Wordpress Blog “A Family Doctor’s Tale” on http://ken-med.com. From which many free articles from the blog was taken and put together into 550 amazon kindle books and some into Smashwords.com eBooks. He apologized for typos and spelling mistakes in his earlier books. He will endeavor to improve the writing in futures. Some people have complained that the simple guides are too simple. For their information they are made simple in order to educate the patients. The later books go into more details of medical conditions. The first chapter of all my ebooks is always taken from my blog A Simple Guide to Medical Conditions which was started in 2007 as a simple educational help to my patients on my first blog http://kennethkee.blogspot.com. The medical condition was described simply and direct to the point. Because the simple guide as taken from the blog was described as too simple, I have increased the other chapters to include more detailed description of the illness, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment. As a result there are the complaints by some readers of constant repetitions of the same contents but in detail and fairly up to date. He has published 550 eBooks on various subjects on health, 1 autobiography of his medical journey, another on the autobiography of a Cancer survivor, 2 children stories and one how to study for his nephew and grand-daughter. The purpose of these simple guides is to educate patient on health conditions and not meant as textbooks. He does not do any night duty since 2000 ever since Dr Tan had his second stroke. His clinic is now relocated to the Bouna Vista Community Centre. The 2 units of his original clinic are being demolished to make way for a new Shopping Mall. He is now doing some blogging and internet surfing (bulletin boards since the 1980's) starting with the Apple computer and going to PC. All the PC is upgraded by himself from XT to the present Pentium duo core. The present Intel i7 CPU is out of reach at the moment because the CPU is still expensive. He is also into DIY changing his own toilet cistern and other electric appliance. His hunger for knowledge has not abated and he is a lifelong learner. The children have all grown up and there are 2 grandchildren who are even more technically advanced than the grandfather where mobile phones are concerned. This book is taken from some of the many articles in his blog (now with 740 posts) A Family Doctor’s Tale. Dr Kee is the author of: "A Family Doctor's Tale" "Life Lessons Learned From The Study And Practice Of Medicine" "Case Notes From A Family Doctor"