Problems of patients with chronic aphasia: different perspectives of husbands and wives?

During the early phase following stroke, patients with aphasia and their fa milies are totally involved in the rehabilitation programme, but later, in the chronic phase,after discharge, the family generally has no support and many problems may arise or become more acute and provoke disturbances in th is system. The patients with aphasia and their spouses may feel the situati on differently according to their own characteristics, including gender. Th e present study includes 55 spouses of patients with chronic aphasia and 37 controls (spouses of subjects without physical or cognitive impairments) w ho filled out a questionnaire concerning their respective spouses (European Brain Injury Questionnaire-EBIQ) and some aspects about themselves. It was concluded, from the opinions expressed by the spouses of patients with chr onic aphasia that they have problems in several domains not only related to communication or physical impairments. The opinions of husbands and wives of patients with aphasia, but not of the controls, were different, with mor e references to behaviour changes in women with aphasia. Spouses' responses also show important changes in their own lives. These results stress the i mportance of adequate attention to the long-term psychosocial problems of p atients and relatives.