At RNR Medicine, we blend expertise with compassion, offering comprehensive speech rehabilitation that empowers individuals to communicate effectively. If you or a loved one is on the path to recovery after a stroke, join us at RNR Medicine for transformative care.

Aphasia is a brain disorder where a person has trouble speaking or understanding other people speaking. It is a frequent consequence of stroke. Speech is an important social element and its deficit leads to significant disability that affects daily living and increases the burden on these patients and their families. In many areas of the world, dedicated research is ongoing that can help patients to reduce their suffering from disability. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is such a novel innovative method that has shown promising results in recent studies. It is a painless, noninvasive method that modulates cortical excitability.

• Stroke causes lifelong language and speech deficit.
  • Some patients may not be able to speak at all (mutism).
  • Patients may not be able to speak fluently. They may stutter or misarticulate the words.
  • Comprehension of the sentences may become difficult despite normal hearing.
  • Patients may struggle with finding words and they may have tangential speech, word-salads or paraphrases.
• These all are the potential candidates for TMS.
• Even patients with pregnancy, hypertension, diabetes, thyroid disorders, kidney diseases, heart diseases etc. can take part in this treatment.
• Medical devices which are commonly used now-a-days like stents, pacemakers, coils, orthopedic implants etc. are usually MRI compatible so they usually do not interfere with the TMS.

TMS has been researched around the world since about the 1980s. Lots of literature has been published so far in peer-reviewed journals on TMS with positive outcomes and negligible adverse effects. Hereby, we are mentioning one of the significant studies on TMS on patients with aphasia.

In an Italian study including 5 right handed post-stroke patients showed significant improvement in naming after TMS treatment.

Method

• TMS is a non-invasive way of Neuromodulation.
• It involves low energy magnetic stimulation of the particular site of the brain through the skull
• This is delivered through a specially designed coil, incorporated in a helmet.
• When the patient comes in, the nurse will take a detailed history and update the doctor. The doctor will thereafter discuss the most suitable protocol with the patient, which will include the duration of each sitting, the frequency of sittings/week and the total no. of sittings.
• Once all confirmed, this will be fed in the computer
• Following this, necessary evaluation is done to determine the MT (Motor threshold) by imparting stimulation through the helmet.
• Based on the predesigned protocols, TMS will be administered to the patient.
• For the post-stroke aphasia, the patient will require about 16 sessions over the period of 4 weeks. Each session will be approximately 15-20 minutes long.
• The procedure does not require any sedation or anesthesia. Patient is not required to keep fasting before the procedure.

The Jaslok Hospital & Research Centre is one of the oldest tertiary care, multi-specialty Trust hospitals in the country. Jaslok Hospital has research activities ongoing in various fields in collaboration with other institutions in India & abroad. The hospital has a dedicated “Restorative and Regenerative Medicine” department including consultants in various fields with more than 20 years of experience.

The department has procured the state-of-art technology and equipment from internationally reputed and trusted “Brainsway” company. It contains the advanced technology of  H1-7 coils instead of conventional coils, that can deliver noninvasive deep TMS in precise manner to get maximum result. It has FDA and CE clearance for treatment of various neurological and psychiatric conditions. The conventional TMS can only deliver specific target sites, limiting their use and capabilities. Deep TMS can reach following target sites; insula, cingulate gyrus, etc.