Review of AphasiaNZ 2009 Aphasia Conference

“Aphasia Therapy and Beyond”

The conference was held over three days from 21^st to 23^rd October 2009, with a symposium for health professionals on the afternoon of day two. 

Approximately 100 people attended, with 78 registered for the conference and 56 for the symposium. People with aphasia made up 25% of those attending, with family members accounting for a further 14%. 

This year, we were delighted to welcome people from all around New Zealand as well as from overseas. We had attendees from around the Auckland region, Waikato, the Coromandel, Tauranga, Hawkes Bay, Rotorua, New Plymouth, Hutt Valley, Horowhenua, Christchurch, and Dunedin; as well as a number of people from Australia, and one Keynote Speaker from the UK – making this a truly international event!

The conference was opened by Henrietta, Duchess of Bedford, the Patron of AphasiaNZ, who spoke movingly of her personal experience of aphasia following her husband’s stroke and explained how this led to the development of the Tavistock Trust for Aphasia in the UK.

Dr Anne Whitworth from Newcastle University in the UK and Dr Deborah Hersh from Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia gave keynote addresses at the conference as well as presenting findings from their research to the SLTs at the symposium. Both were extremely well received with comments such as "inspirational".

There were six presentations by people with aphasia, highlighting the challenges of living with aphasia, and providing personal insights into the strategies used to cope with aphasia. 

The health professionals spoke about issues such as coping strategies, quality of life, and different ways of providing therapy and support, as well as the findings of research into patient perceptions of speech language therapy in New Zealand.

Workshops were held on ‘educating your community’, ‘finding resources for therapy’, ‘primary progressive aphasia’ and ‘supporting each other in your community’. Feedback from this last workshop will be used to inform the services planned by AphasiaNZ for different areas of the country.

A Rhythm Interactive icebreaker event took place on the second morning. This gave a strong clear message to all that ‘actions speak louder than words’, and was a remarkable demonstration of the power of facial expression and gesture, as well as being tremendous fun!

There was once again significant importance placed by people with aphasia on the value of meeting others with aphasia, with feedback about the value of “knowing you are not alone”. Family members also commented on the pleasure and insight gained from “watching my family member (with aphasia) interacting with others” and “seeing the personal growth/confidence in the family member with aphasia”.

Speech Language Therapists, both qualified and students, as well as the other health professionals present spoke of the value of learning “what people think about their therapy – you don’t always get that feedback”. They also commented on the usefulness of hearing the perspectives of people with aphasia in terms of becoming more aware and informed, and the importance of really listening to people with aphasia when they set their goals in therapy.

Overall, attendees commented that the event had been:

-       “a fantastic opportunity”

-       “uplifting”

-       “a great way to meet people with aphasia and caregivers”

-       “interesting and stimulating – fantastic”

-       “looking forward to the next one”

We are delighted that all who provided this feedback indicated that they would attend another conference, and we hope that the enthusiasm engendered (“it has re-fired me to want to educate the public….”) can be nurtured and grown so that we meet again in 2011 to tell each other about further new developments with New Zealand.