When Paul Fraser collapsed in his home in Byron Bay, New South Wales (NSW), he lay helpless on the floor, suddenly unable to speak.
His wife Julie Brown immediately called an ambulance, knowing he was likely having a stroke.
“He was speaking gobbledygook,” Brown told AAP, recalling the moment at their northern NSW residence in August 2021.
“He was speaking like an alien. But now, it’s chalk and cheese.”
Fraser, a retired social sciences teacher, was among the first cohort of regional Australians to use a new high-intensity telehealth therapy program for people living with aphasia.
More than 140,000 people nationally have the condition which limits the ability to communicate, usually after a stroke damages parts of the brain responsible for language….