Re: aphasic

[riversong]

That is a great question.  Any language impairment resulting from an injury to the brain would certainly be aphasia.  In terms of dysarthria, which is a muscular weakness and speech disorder rather than a language disorder, I don�t think you can, by itself,  technically code it as aphasia.   Fortunately for us (and unfortunately for the patient), dysarthria rarely occurs without a concomitant level of receptive or expressive aphasia, since dysarthria is typically due to an injury in the same area of the brain.   It is probably important for the SLP to test and document the degree of actual aphasia in these cases.    Garry You are very knowledgeable of this subject and I appreciate your answering my questions. I am curious to know what the CCC and CAS stand for after your name.  My consulter feels I should have marked the MDS as aphasic for the speech impediment although it was not clarified (even though I need to recheck the chart to see if I missed something on the therapy notes and evals.) Thank you again. Becky