[Communication disorder in chronic stage stroke patients].

Although aphasia is a common neurological condition, and its diagnostic procedure is mostly established, it is not easy to fully evaluate the communicative ability of each patient, as there are huge interindividual differences among patients, and their abilities may vary depending on their circumstances. Even with the advancement of neuroimaging technique, the relationship between lesion localizations and symptoms remains elusive. To evaluate their residual abilities which helps daily communication, it is valuable to observe their abilities in a setting which reflects real social contexts. In this presentation a patient with total aphasia who showed rich communicative abilities in a group therapy setting is presented, which was discrepant from his results of standardized language evaluation. We found that his residual communicative abilities have things much in common with linguistic abilities shown to reside in the right hemisphere. The observation also revealed that the group treatment of patients with chronic aphasia provides a unique occasion to participate in social activities which helps to fulfill their psychosocial needs.