SimpliHere’s Top 7 Products to Aid in Daily Living with Aphasia

Over the last two months, we recognized ALS Awareness Month (May) and Aphasia Awareness Month (June). These annual health awareness months are important opportunities to raise the visibility of the unique challenges of living with ALS, aphasia, and other life-altering conditions. That’s why, at SimpliHere, we are excited to share a list of our top seven communication devices, apps, and products, based on feedback from community members, reviews, and conversations, to aid in daily living for those impacted by neurodegenerative diseases that affect speech, swallowing, and mobility.**

Swallowing solutions:

Real Food Blends: The only ready-to-feed, true “blenderized” diet option for tube feeding that is made from 100% real food. Suitable for kids and adults, this family-founded company, inspired by the nutritional needs of their tube-fed son, offers a variety of vegetables, fruits, protein sources, grains, and fat sources across nine different products. Real Food Blends meals and snacks affordable but are also covered by many public and private insurance plans under HCPCS B4149 and can be provided by your DME or home infusion company.

Tongueometer: The Tongueometer is an affordable, at-home device designed to measure and increase tongue strength and endurance. It is a small, hand-held device that allows you to perform dysphagia rehabilitation at home or on the go. It objectively measures tongue strength and endurance, allows users to easily set exercise settings based on recommendations from their healthcare professional, and stores and shares exercise results with your healthcare professional with the click of a button.

Communication apps:

SimpliHere: Naturally, we think our app is the very best—but if you’re reading this post, you probably already know that. SimpliHere really is one of the most comprehensive and very best apps out there for patients, caregivers, and families living with ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases. And we’ve recently made it even better by releasing a new version of the app to better support our users. Enjoy SimpliHere’s simple, user-friendly interface; one-click communications that allow patients and caregivers to request a variety of actions or ask questions related to their condition; access to forums; streamlined communication with caregivers, families, and others; and access to valuable resources (news updates, products, and other services).

TouchChat HD: This is a pricey augmentative and alternative communication (ACC) app, but it is the most full-featured AAC solution we have found for people who have difficulty using their natural voice. The app gives the user the ability to choose a fully customizable vocabulary file, consisting of pages and buttons that contain words, phrases, sentences, and other functions. TouchChat is bundled with WordPower®, a word-based vocabulary that allows for easy and intuitive communication. Messages are spoken with a built-in voice synthesizer or by playing a recorded message.

The app can message and email via various applications and can integrate audio and video files, including YouTube integration. Synthesized and custom voice options are available, allowing the user to choose a voice that fits their personality, and the app is available in a range of languages.

Additionally, a few features are particularly helpful for ALS patients: gestures can be used to navigate to new pages, speak messages, etc., and button activation timing is a great feature that allows the user to adjust button dwell time, release time, and activation upon button release. Additional access methods such as scanning, head tracking, and eye tracking may be available (based on your device model and, in some cases, may require an additional hardware purchase). Another helpful feature is that once programming is complete, vocabulary files can be imported and exported through AirDrop, email, iTunes® file sharing, DropBox™ or Google Drive™.

Proloquo2Go: This is an easy-to-use AAC app for people of all ages, from non-spellers to adults, who cannot speak or need help being understood. By tapping images, typing words, or speaking, it features natural-sounding voices (including children’s voices), is fully customizable, and serves as a simple yet powerful tool that can be utilized to build language skills and grow with a person’s communication, supporting both beginning and advanced communicators.

Although this app is highly priced, parents, patients, family members, therapists, teachers, and users around the world recognize Proloquo2Go as the gold standard in AAC solutions. The app is used by people with a range of conditions and speech difficulties and incorporates English, Spanish, French, and Dutch, and even supports bilingual use, so you can switch languages on the fly.

Therapy/recovery apps for Aphasia:

My Aphasia Coach: This app is a cognitive and aphasia speech therapy tool was developed to support and speed up progress from home. Users can get started for free, with no credit card required, through a 14-day complimentary trial for users (it’s always 100% free for therapists) to determine whether this is the right aphasia therapy support. After that, monthly or annual subscription plans are available. Users get instant access to professional-level therapy and the entire catalog of tools and features that help retrain their brain from anywhere through daily exercises on their phone.

Users learn at their own pace with automated exercise difficulty level settings, depending on their needs; daily “homework” assignments to keep users on track; and many other features. The app offers custom plans and exercises to help tailor the platform to serve the needs of clients and is always evolving, with a user experience that is created, researched, and adapted constantly, thanks to the intensive therapy clients who work with the app developer, a professional aphasia therapist.

Constant Therapy: Constant Therapy is an award-winning, science-based cognitive, language, and speech therapy app designed to help people recovering from stroke, traumatic brain injury (TBI), or people living with aphasia, apraxia, dementia, and other neurological conditions. The app boasts a community of 700,000+ users who, together, have completed 300 million+ evidence-based therapy activities. With Constant Therapy, users have access to unlimited therapy, guided by AI, that allows them to engage in therapy exercises when and where they want.

Available in U.S. English, Spanish, and Indian English, the app delivers customized and ever-evolving exercises based on the user’s unique needs to tackle memory challenges, enhance communication skills, and regain everyday abilities. Skill-building exercises cover speaking, memory, attention, reading, writing, language, math, comprehension, problem solving, visual processing, auditory memory, and more than 90 other therapy areas developed by neuroscientists and clinicians. Users can work independently at home, pair with in-clinic therapy, and add a clinician to monitor progress. This app also offers a free 14-day trial, as well as a friendly, live customer support team that is trained to work with people with cognitive, communication, and speech challenges.

About SimpliHere

The mission of SimpliHere is to ensure efficient care and peace of mind for caregivers and their patients with neurological conditions that impact communication and mobility. Joanna Rosenberg founded SimpliHere to address communication gaps between caregivers and patients. Her personal experience when her mother lived with ALS exposed the challenges of communicating and understanding basic needs, as well as managing daily tasks. Download SimpliHere today!

** A quick disclaimer/reminder: Consult your physician or speech-language pathologist (SLP). It is crucial to consult with a physician and/or SLP to determine the best approach for managing swallowing difficulties related to aphasia. They can assess an individual’s specific needs and recommend appropriate strategies, including exercises and assistive devices.