Judy and Howie Blatt in 1996. Sacha Pfeiffer/NPR hide caption In 1983, Howard Blatt was a middle-aged married father working as an electrical engineer at MIT when he collapsed in his kitchen. He'd had a stroke.
That health catastrophe left him with a paralyzed arm and leg, as well as almost total loss of speech. He was diagnosed with aphasia, a brain disorder that can occur after strokes and head injuries, and robs people of their ability to communicate. Here's how Blatt, who died May 7 at his home near Boston at age 88, described his post-stroke condition: "No talking — zip.
Speech — zip. One incident. Changed life.
" Although he used adaptive devices to overcome some of his physical disabilities, he never fully recovered. And he discovered, to his dismay, that support networks for people with aphasia were a rarity in the early 1980s. So, with his wife and a small group of other people, Blatt helped create an organization that may be his most important legacy: the Aphasia Community Group, now one of the country's oldest and largest continuously operating support groups for people with aphasia and their families.
Many of its members say the group — founded in 1990 at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston and now based at Boston University — rescued them from isolation. It offers an expansive array of services and activities — including concerts, book groups, potluck meals, health information, and technology tips for managing disabilities — as well as companio.
