Source: Adler Aphasia Center
At the Adler Aphasia Center site in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, stroke survivors with aphasia recently teamed up with employees of Express Scripts, the nation’s largest pharmacy benefits management company, and Center members for an enjoyable day of crafting, educating and friendship building while learning more about aphasia and how to communicate with someone with a language disorder.
Aphasia is a communication disorder that impairs the expression and understanding of spoken language, reading and writing. It occurs most often from a stroke or brain injury. It affects a person’s ability to communicate, but not his or her intellect.
The Adler Aphasia Center is a non-profit organization with two full service facilities based in Maywood and West Orange and ten Aphasia Communication Groups located throughout the state. Its an innovative post-rehabilitative therapeutic programs address the long-term needs of people with aphasia and their families. There is no federal, state or insurance funding for ongoing aphasia services, and the Center therefore must rely on the generosity of donors to offer the critical support that stroke survivors with aphasia need and deserve.
Something Special is the Center’s vocational artisan program in which stroke survivors with aphasia design and handcraft unique jewelry and gifts. This innovative program provides ongoing revenue for Adler Aphasia Center programs for people with aphasia and their caregivers through jewelry and gifts designed, crafted and sold by stroke and brain injury survivors with aphasia.
Sales are held in at home parties, pop-up sales sites, health care facilities, and through events in partnership with corporate sponsors. Sales support the Center’s programs as well as the Center’s Scholarship Fund for those who may not have the means to pay a nominal tuition fee each month.
With 2,400,000 people diagnosed with aphasia in the U.S., the Center is the only one of its kind in New Jersey, which has about 70,000 people living with aphasia. Considered the world leader in long-term, post-rehab community-based care for people with aphasia, this communication disorder affects 40% of all stroke and brain trauma survivors.
On Wednesday, September 26, 2018, Adler Aphasia Center will celebrate its 15th anniversary at its annual gala at Seasons in Washington Twp., NJ from 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm. This year’s theme, A Fifteen Year Journey to Reconnection, Recovery and Rediscovery, will showcase the journey that Center stroke survivors with aphasia and their families have embarked on at the Center to build a better quality of life.
For more information about Adler Aphasia Center programs and services, or about Aphasia Communication Groups in Bridgewater, Haddonfield, Hammonton, Maywood, Monroe, Morristown, North Bergen, Scotch Plains and Toms River, visit their Web site at AdlerAphasiaCenter.org or call 201.368.8585.