Episode #99: Communication Partner Training for Health Care Professionals with Dr. Jytte Isaksen

Welcome to the Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Katie Strong and I'm a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources. I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Dr. Jytte Isaksen. We'll be talking about Making Communication about Healthcare Everyone's Responsibility: Communication Partner Training for Health Care Professionals

Jytte Isaksen is an associate professor at the Department of Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark. She has a background as speech and language pathologist. Jytte lectures in the speech-language pathology and audiology programs in evidence-based practice, qualitative research methodologies, neurogenic communication disorders including aphasia, and other clinical subjects. Jytte's research is centred around communication with people with aphasia, for example communication partner training of health professionals, but she is also interested in outcome evaluation of aphasia therapy, involvement of people with aphasia in research, and supporting access and services for people with aphasia in low- and middle-income countries. A current research project of hers is about families living with aphasia and how to make sure that they get support throughout the care pathway. Jytte is a part of the international research group Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists, where she serves in the executive committee and as chair of the working group Societal Impact and Reintegration.

In this episode you will: Learn about the importance of trained healthcare providers who can communicate with people living with aphasia. Be introduced to the KomTil method of training developed in Denmark. Be inspired to consider how you might incorporate communication partner training with healthcare providers in your community. Katie: As we get started, I wondered if you could you tell our listeners exactly what is meant by communication partner training. And why is it so important for health care providers?

Jytte: Thank you so much, first of all, Katie and Aphasia Access for inviting me to talk about this topic that is very close to my heart. I think that conversation communication partner training, CPT, is defined in different ways in literature. But one of the definitions that I usually stick to is that CPT is an umbrella term that covers different types of complex interventions for communication partners of people with aphasia, and possibly the person with aphasia themselves. And why is it important to healthcare professionals? I would say it's important for everyone working with a person with aphasia because you need to be able to communicate with them. No matter if you are a nurse, or a physiotherapist, or anyone in the healthcare system. The secretary on the ward that needs to communicate with people with aphasia. You need to be able to express yourself in a way that people with aphasia better understand you, but also support them in their expression so that they can say what they really want to say, or some of it at least.

Katie: Absolutely. I completely agree. Being able to have conversations about your healthcare is just so important. So important. What role do speech-language pathologists play in the training of healthcare professionals?

Jytte: We play a very important role. I think it's a way of opening up participation in life, including in healthcare, for people with aphasia. Since we are the professionals especially trained in being able not just to treat, but hopefully also to communicate with people with aphasia, I think we as a profession are a good way into that. But I will later in this podcast talk about how other healthcare professionals can also be CPT providers. We have tried to do that in the project I will tell you about later today.

Katie: Yeah, that's so exciting.