“My brother is suffering slight speech loss after an operation. Will he recover?”
My brother is 48 years old and recently underwent surgery for a head injury. However after the surgery (it has been 5 days) there are noticed changes in his speech. The doctors say it may take up to 3 weeks to recover, but we are very scared for him. Is there anything we can do?
8 Answers
I'm not sure why you were told 3 weeks. He may be back to normal in a few days, or 3 weeks, or he may never get back to normal. You won't really know how he will ultimately end up for up to about 2 years. At that point, you can pretty much bet that's as good as he's going to get. Until then, the harder he works at rehab, the better he will do.
Try talking with him in the morning when he will be at his best. Speech therapy can also help speed up his recovery. But don’t push him when he is tired or getting frustrated. Good luck.
The head injury itself could have caused this, or it might be a sequel of the procedure. I would recommend starting him on speech therapy as soon as possible.
Nothing you can do. Time will tell. The recovery depends on the location and extent of the surgery.
Please address your concerns with the care team. Very often speech pathologists continue working with the patient after discharge from acute care.
Skull fractures that don't requires surgery will heal over 3 months. If the fractures are operated upon and a cranioplasty (fracture repair) is performed then plan on healing to take up to 6 months. However, most repairs are usually very solid since plates and screws are used for the reconstruction.
This can certainly happen because of many reasons, one of which is swelling without any major disruption to the anatomical tracts responsible for speech, or it may be because of actual damage that can sometimes happen because of the surgery as you try to evacuate a hematoma or infarcted brain that is swollen, causing mass effect requiring removal, so how long it will take is really variable, but if it's swelling, then it should be within 2-4 weeks. But if it's damaging to the tracts, then it's a question of brain plasticity and how long these new circuits will take over. Generally, we tell patients you have 1 year from the date of surgery for recovery. After that, you reach your plateau, so with speech therapy and cognitive rehab, hopefully things will start to improve.
Jacob Januszewski
Neurosurgeon
There is nothing you can do. Only time will tell how he recovers. I am not sure what kind of surgery he had so I cannot tell what the speech loss is from exactly. This can result from what's called a "syndrome of the trephined" which sometimes happens after a decompressive hemicraniectomy, or could be from the head injury itself. Unfortunately you have to give it some time and see how he recovers. His recovery could take up to even 1 year, not just 3 weeks, and he could have gradual and progressive improvement over that course of time.
