Andy bravely shares his story to help others during Aphasia Awareness Month

Andy suffered a stroke in September 2022 at the age of 52. He was left with aphasia.

Aphasia affects 1 in 3 stroke survivors and around 2,400 people are diagnosed with aphasia every year. But many people don’t know what it is.

Aphasia can impact someone’s ability to speak, understand, read, write and use numbers. It doesn’t affect intelligence.

For the first three weeks in hospital, Andy couldn’t speak at all, and doctors told him it would likely be two – four years before he regained some of his speech.

Andy has made incredible progress since then and just months later, with the help of Production Bureau, he made a short film to share his experiences and educate people on aphasia.

In this powerful short film, Andy talks about those initial, terrifying days when he had no communication at all and the determination and hope he held onto to try and regain his speech. With the incredible support of Speech and Language therapists, Andy is able to speak again and is bravely sharing his story to help others and to make Scotland more aphasia aware.