Ep. 20 Aphasia, Brain Health & Recovery with Professor Julius Fridriksson

This week on When Words Don’t Come Easy, we’re honored to welcome — one of the world’s leading researchers in aphasia and stroke recovery.Professor Julius Fridriksson serves as Vice President for Research at the University Of South Carolina and is the founder of the Aphasia Lab and the Center for the Study of Aphasia Recovery (C-STAR), one of the largest collaborative aphasia research initiatives in the world.Over the course of his career, he has helped secure more than $50 million in research funding dedicated to understanding stroke recovery, neuroplasticity, and new approaches to aphasia rehabilitation. His work has helped challenge the long-held belief that recovery plateaus early, showing instead that many stroke survivors can continue improving years after their stroke.In this episode, we talk about:• How the brain creates “back roads” after injury• Why brain health plays a massive role in recovery• The science behind long-term aphasia improvement• Audio-visual speech therapy and rehabilitation• Why the way recovery is measured matters so much• Hope for stroke survivors and families navigating aphasiaThis conversation hit home for us because so much of Roger’s recovery journey connects directly to the kind of work Professor Fridriksson has dedicated his life to.If you or someone you love is living with aphasia, this is an episode worth hearing.https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2026/05/boosting-stroke-recovery.https://www.sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/public_health/index.phphttps://cstar.sc.edu/https://sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/research/#WhenWordsDontComeEasy #Aphasia #StrokeRecovery #StrokeSurvivor #BrainHealth #SpeechTherapy #Neuroplasticity #JuliusFridriksson #CSTAR #AphasiaRecovery #RecoveryJourney #Podcast