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10 stouffville simrtribunem saturday june 23 2007 aphasia centres grew from stouffville from page 1 while working in home care in the 1980s parkview village in stouffville supported the program from the start offering it a place to meet with clients and more vol unteers came from the stouffville com munity the group received funding in the fall of 1989 from the seniors independence program and then from the ministry of health and longterm care beginning in 1990 the york durham aphasia centre also holds annual roll and wheelathon fundraisers aphasia is a chronic issue mrs pat terson said that means clients have to be supported over a number of years to keep learning and improving their com munication skills at the yee hong centre for geriatric care in markham people sit around two tables talking animatedly in a bright cheerful room decorated with chinese art prints and signs in english and can tonese although their speech isnt the swiftest and theyre using gestures smiles and help from staff at the centre their joy in being able to communicate with the others around the table is evi dent to encourage them to speak facilita tors at the monday morning program use gestures write down key words draw pictures and have clients point to letters words or pictures the team at the aphasia centre in the yee hong centre includes speech pathologists communicative disorder assistants and volunteers many of the clients here are able to express themselves to some degree and continue to improve markham resident george lau suffered a stroke in 2004 he was getting ready to talk to the group later that morning about his first house he is surprisingly articulate in english and also speaks mandarin and canton ese during a part of the program called the gavel club members talk about everything mr lau explains carefully and clearly with the help of communicative disorder assistant anne hrabi from stouffville mr lau tells about how he came here from hong kong in 1992 the lively senior was an electrical engineer in hong kong for 30 years his wife lai bing drives him to the centre monday mornings and his speech has improved he said he finds the speech and movement part of the morning helpful while doing a form of tai chi monday morning the clients also describe what they were doing such as saying up when rais ing their arms for instance ms hrabi was delighted that mr lau had come up with the word descend ing when lowering his arm during the exercise ms hrabi speaks slowly and clearly when addressing clients and writes the key words of the conversation on a pad of paper which she holds up for the cli ent to see people with aphasia often lose their second language and retain more of their mother tongue a dictionary of common words was developed at the yee hong centre with words written in english and cantonese with a phonetic rendition of the can tonese pictures accompany most of the words to make it easier for clients different languages present chal lenges some clients for instance can point to alphabet boards mrs patterson said but when it comes to the chinese languages that cant be done there are about 6000 chinese symbols and they wont fit on one board when they first come to one of the aphasia centres clients work with a facilitator often a volunteer or speech pathology or communicative disorder assistant student to make up their own life history books in pictures photo graphs drawings from children or grandchildren and simple sentences written in large letters the clients life becomes in a very real sense an open book clients can also use the book on their own to help them communicate when they are out in the community or at home the york durham aphasia centre has programs in richmond hill newmar ket markham stouffville and maple as well as whitby and peterborough the programs are wellrecognized in the health care system mrs patterson said the markham program runs more smoothly because of its five volunteers some of whom speak cantonese in maple staff and volunteers have developed an italian pictionary for their clients and use gestures staffer nata lie wint said aphasia is complicated by a second language she added the centre has earned the praise of the community care access centre which provides access to health care in the region they are very clientfocussed executive director cathy szabo said and they are a large part of our care planning with clients they took their approach from a small level and made it bigger and bigger for more information on the program log on to ydaconca staff photosteve somerville student facilitators natalie wint left and sheri rutherford work with aphasia patients marilyn taylor george lau joan duncan giovanna di napoli and alexandra brookes at the york durham aphasia centre in markham monday