My partner is 24 weeks post stroke and he has expressive aphasia.
First question is
He knows the days of the week
But the wrong day comes out of his mouth. Does this get better?
Also gets numbers mixed up. Will that get better.
And he cant text. Words are jumbled up x
Though it may have been said before, it is worth saying again. Quite simply, yes it does get better 
From where you’re standing it may not seem that way because sometimes the improvement is small but it is incremental and so for you it might pass you by, but someone on the outside will notice a huge difference. Just as an example, if someone saw your partner last week and they see them next week, almost certainly they will see some improvement.
Now, if someone saw you partner last month and see them again next month, they will likely see an even bigger or greater improvement due to the elapsed time.
It gets better, let’s say someone saw your partner three months ago, in another three months the changes they will see will be even bigger.
All these things are happening but it is a perception think. You and your partner may not think things are improving, but if you sit down and start to think back how things were in the way I described above, hopefully you will likely agree that things have already improved significantly and in fact they will continue to do so. They never stop improving
Don’t be too harsh on yourselves and don’t over do things. Take it slowly or at a pace you can manage and the success and improvements will be greater. If you do too much too soon, you may do more harm than good.
The body and mind always need time to rest and recharge.
I don’t know if you are monitoring the amount of rest and sleep your partner is getting, but this is something that I feel should not be underestimated. I believe the more sleep and rest you can get, the better the quality of the recovery.
Hi Claire, I was diagnosed with receptive and expressive dysphasia in 2016.
Asphasia was once known as an inability to communicate and dysphasia as a partial inability to communicate. Over the last ten years they have become one word.
From what you have written it appears that he is verbally communicating and that is a good sign going forward.
The problem for a lot of stroke survivors is the thought process. He is as intelligent now as he was before the stroke, he just can’t express it. Saying the wrong day, numbers, names, colours is not important at this stage. He is communicating, so be thankful.
Only challenge his mistakes in a gentle way by prompting, never challenge as at this stage he doesn’t know why the connection between what he is thinking and what is being communicated is incorrect. Gentle prompting only and know when to back off from his frustration. Make him think.
He may stutter or stammer when words return, don’t intervene as it doesn’t help. Do you like people saying words or finishing sentences for you? It used to drive me crazy and I would get verbally agitated.
He may repeat questions that you have answered several times. Flip it back on him and make him tell you the answer.
It took me two years to communicate acceptablely and it has steadily improved, but one thing is sure we are all different.
Texting while your communication is not great is probably not great, I learnt the hard way. Have you ever sent a text that someone has taken the wrong way without brain injuries?
I’m here if you have any questions and I wish your partner a good recovery
Thank you so much for all of this.
I know its early days but I just wanted other people’s opinions x
O wow thank you. Hes on antidepressants now so thats making him have a good night sleep.
I can’t say much more than @JimBob65 hasn’t already said. Some of it will be due to lack of cognition and once that is back onboard it will make a marked improvement in his speech. At least that is how it was for me. Cognition came back about 18-20 months after my mini stroke. And that was a light switch moment for me. So yes it will improve, it’s still early days and all perfectly normal under these circumstances.
Lorraine
Thank you so much. I will show his these massages today.
Sorry for all the posts.
I like to hear from other people x
Don’t ever feel guilty for asking questions, the more you ask the better. Paticularly for your partner as he can’t ask them for himself. This gives him peace of mind.
Every question you ask matters! You are so valuable to all the stroke survivors with Aphasia on here, you just don’t realise just how much. And its ecause you can ask questions they can’t yet. But they might be able to read. And I was one of the! So if you happen to ask the right question, if they do similar to me, they’ll keep that topic open until they’ve read it all or fatigue kicks in. I used to just keep my computer open on a topic of interest and read it in small doses, a post or paragraph at a time. If I closed a post for later I’d never find my way back to it. I made that mistake only once and learnt from it 
I had other issues to contend with such as stamina, slow eye movement/reaction time among other issues. It took over a year to post anything on here myself.
So, please do ask anything, any time, a dozen times a day if need be. And I’m certain there are more questions you’re partner like to know the answer to if only he could construct the question and relay it to you. And there are some questions he may never get the answer to because the words have never been invented.
Lorraine
Thank you so much. This is for him but more for me too. As I like to know more about strokes etc. And some positive stuff for me.
As just now he tried sewing our child’s cubs badges on his jumper.
But he cant anymore due to numbness in a few fingers and gets frustrated towards me as he used to do it one time
It’s good that he is trying these things though as that’s how the brain will remap everything. Frustrating right now but will be so worth it in the end.
When I had my stroke one of the things that alerted me to there being something wrong was everything I typed was gobbledygook. Whilst I still get things wrong as you can see I am loads better so every reason to hope the same for your partner..
Getting frustrated is perfectly ok, so let him. Its all part of the journey to recovery. He just has to persevere like I did, and I used to sew a lot both by hand and machine. It will come, and real life practical experience like that is far better than any set of exercises that physio can give him. It is frustrating, and we quickly realise just how much we took for granted before our strokes. Certainly makes me appreciate what I’ve regained.
Lorraine
Thank you
How long since your stroke again ?
This is what its like 
I’m 5 years post stroke now and pretty much independent now. I still have some minor issues but not enough to hold me back. I can drive, shop, attend various fitness classes, walking, gardening, crazy golf and do just about most things. Things such as household finances, computer issues, I leave to my hubby and kids, but I can organise the cooker and washing machine repairs. I can now remember important dates, plan ahead, remember to take my meds and renew prescriptions, even keep track of my hubby’s eye drops and apply them using my stroke hand after his cataract surgery. The return of cognition help with a lot of those kind of things.
Lorraine
O wow 5 years. So 24 weeks is nothing at all. Did you have a major stroke?
My partners speech is slowly getting there.
Just the aphasia and numbness in fingers
24 weeks is more likely a day in stroke recovery.
No, mine was a minor stroke, as TIA! I still a minor issues with speach, fingers dexterity, foot drop, some stability issue walking slowly, butwalking fast is fine, go figure 
And even though I know I still have issues with speech, no one else seems to notices. But I have had 5 years of retraining and adapting to mask the issue
Lorraine
Awww ok. Bless you. You have done really well.
My partners doing not.too bad compared to others.ive spoken too
Just don’t take his frustrations personally. He needs to be able to express them freely. It helps take the pressure off the brain, same as crying does. Just know that he loves you and will be back just as soon as his brain sorts itself out.
Lorraine
Think of his brain injuries as a beautiful stream. Everything was flowing along nicely until one day a large boulder rolled into it and the flow of the stream stopped. The stream had to continue to flow so gradually tiny tributaries started to form and began to trickle around the boulder. They grew larger as they passed around the boulder and some would come together. Then more and more came together until in time the stream was once again flowing beautifully, it was very slightly slower to start with but it had worked its way around the boulder.
I love those words you have just used
What a great way to describe it.
