Intensive speech therapy gives father his voice back after stroke

A father of two who lost the ability to speak after suffering a stroke has regained his voice following pioneering therapy.

Tom Bulatovic, 50, collapsed in the shower at home in Chiswick. He was rushed to Charing Cross hospital, in Hammersmith, for an emergency thrombectomy to remove the blood clot in his brain.

Doctors were able to remove 80 per cent of the clot, saving him from physical disability, but he suffered the communication disorder aphasia, leaving him unable to say his own name or those of his family.

Aphasia is caused by stroke, brain injury or brain tumours and affects more than 350,000 people in the UK, making speaking, listening, reading and writing an immense challenge.

The NHS offers 12 hours of speech therapy for stroke patients, which Mr Bulatovic used up before going private.

He was still struggling with his communication skills when his wife found out about an intensive course at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, in Holborn, funded by the National Brain Appeal charity.

This offers 100 hours of therapy over three weeks. Mr Bulatovic, a university audio visual expert, was one of the first patients to receive the therapy last month. He said: “It was brilliant. I threw myself into it, to the point that I was exhausted at the end of each day. The three weeks were intense but incredibly helpful.”

Mr Bulatovic’s eldest daughter, Scarlett, 17, wants to become a speech therapist and helped his recovery by recording the alphabet, which he would practise.

Last month Mr Bulatovic was able to address a lecture attended by 200 people about his therapy.

His wife Barbara, an English teacher, said: “I felt so proud of Tom and shed a tear seeing him up there talking in front of so many people.” The couple have another daughter Ava, 13.

Jenny Crinion, UCL professor of cognitive neuroscience and co-founder of the programme, said: “It is never too late for the appropriate rehabilitation for patients with aphasia. It is simply not true that if more than a year has passed they will never get better.”

Alex Leff, UCL professor of neurology, said: “The therapy itself is neither radical or new, but the dose and intensity is.”

There is hope that intensive speech therapy will become standard on the NHS.