Wheaton, Illinois – June 18, 2026 – After surviving a life-changing bicycling accident that left her with a traumatic brain injury and aphasia, Lemont resident Linda Budziak is back to running her in home daycare, a feat made possible with significant help from the Northwestern Medicine Aphasia Center at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital.

When Budziak went out for a bike ride while visiting friends in Indiana in August 2023, she never expected it would change her life. Just minutes from finishing the ride, rain began to fall, and Linda lost control of her bicycle.

The crash left her with a traumatic brain injury, a brain bleed, and a broken hip and femur. She required emergency brain surgery and spent weeks hospitalized before starting rehabilitation.

When she woke from a coma more than a week later, Budziak realized the injury had affected her ability to communicate. “I could understand that my speech wasn’t right,” she said. “I’m a talking person, so that was hard for me.”

The Northwestern Medicine Aphasia Center at Northwestern Medicine Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital would play a critical role in helping Budziak regain her confidence, reconnect with others, and return to the life she loved.

What Is Aphasia?

Aphasia is a language disorder that affects a person’s ability to communicate. It can impact speaking, understanding, reading, and writing, even though the person knows what they want to say.

“At the core of it, a person with aphasia knows what they want to say, but they just have difficulty putting it into words,” said Michelle Armour, MS, CCC-SLP, founder and program manager of the Aphasia Center.

Aphasia is most commonly caused by stroke, but it can also result from a traumatic brain injury or other changes to the brain. The severity and presentation vary from person to person, often affecting daily life, relationships, and independence.

Why the Aphasia Center Is About Community

The Northwestern Medicine Aphasia Center at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital is designed as a community-based program, a unique offering that is accessible to anyone in the community living with aphasia.

“Our main goal is to help individuals not only continue to improve their communication, no matter how long it’s been since their injury, but help them connect with other people who have similar experiences,” Armour said.

Group sessions bring together people living with aphasia to practice communication, socialize, and support one another.

According to Armour, this sense of connection is essential to long term recovery.

“When communication changes unexpectedly from a stroke or brain injury, social circles can shrink and people can feel isolated,” she said. “By providing this safe space where everyone understands what it’s like to have trouble communicating, it creates a new community and helps people avoid that isolating feeling.”

The program emphasizes what Armour describes as “living well with aphasia” by helping participants engage in meaningful activities and relationships, regardless of the severity of their language challenges.

How the Aphasia Center Helped Linda Budziak Get Her Life Back

When Budziak first joined the Aphasia Center program, she struggled with reading and was hesitant to speak in the group. “I literally sat there and I couldn’t even read a sentence,” Budziak said.

Armour remembers those early days clearly. “When Linda first joined our program, she was very quiet and a little nervous,” Amour said. “Over the course of her involvement, she has just blossomed.”

Within weeks, Budziak began to see dramatic improvement. “After three weeks, I was a different person,” Budziak said. “Talking to other people who had injuries or strokes helped me so much. I always told myself, ‘I’m going to get better. I’m not going to give up.’”

The program helped Budziak rebuild confidence in her communication skills, return to running her licensed in-home daycare full time, and discover a new love for reading. “I literally have a love for reading, which I never did,” she said. “It’s also given me a love to help people and to talk to people again.”

Today, Budziak volunteers weekly at Marianjoy and continues to participate in the Aphasia Center, welcoming new members and offering encouragement through her own experience. “If you’re having a hard time, you come here, you talk to other people, and you go home feeling better,” she said. “Being around other people keeps you motivated.”

About the Northwestern Medicine Aphasia Center at Marianjoy

The Northwestern Medicine Aphasia Center at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital is designed for people experiencing aphasia who would like to improve their communication skills and connect with others also experiencing aphasia. In-person and virtual options are available.

Patients can participate in several different ways:

Intensive Comprehensive Aphasia Program (ICAP) — A four-week program comprised of intensive speech services. Participants work with a specialized speech-language pathologists one-on-one and in group sessions for six hours a day, four days a week.     

One-on-One Sessions — Held in person or virtual, one-on-one sessions are available for an additional fee.

Group Activities —  A speech-language pathologist leads small groups sessions where participants can practice their skills through real life activities including games, technology use, writing, books and music. These eight-week programs consist of three-hours sessions once a week. A variety of scheduling options are available.

Northwestern Medicine Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital is a nationally recognized specialty hospital dedicated to physical medicine and rehabilitation. The hospital provides comprehensive inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation services for individuals recovering from brain injury, stroke, spinal cord injury, orthopedic trauma, and other complex medical conditions.

Through innovative programs like the Aphasia Center, Marianjoy focuses on helping patients regain function, independence, and quality of life by addressing both physical and cognitive recovery, as well as the social and emotional aspects of healing.

Language is not only David McClure’s livelihood, but also a point of pride.  When a stroke impacted his ability to communicate, McClure admits he went to a dark place emotionally. A unique aphasia program at Northwestern Medicine Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Wheaton, Illinois is helping the Versailles, Ohio writer regain his sense of identity.

In January McClure had a stroke while on the job at MidMark Corporation. Fortunately, a coworker quickly called 9-1-1. However, even with the rapid treatment, the temporary lack of blood flow to the part of his brain responsible for speech caused permanent damage. He was diagnosed with Broca’s aphasia, a language disorder in which patients can often understand speech and know what they want to say but have trouble finding and fluently speaking the right words.

“This was tragic for me. My thoughts exist but words fail me. They didn’t use to. I spoke well and often eloquently. It was part of who I was,” said McClure.

McClure attended outpatient speech therapy but felt he only regained about 20% of the language ability he needed to return to work and a full life. His sister, an occupational therapist at Northwestern Medicine Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital, encouraged him to enroll in the hospital’s Intensive Comprehensive Aphasia Program (ICAP).

“Research shows that intensive speech therapy can help people with aphasia improve their language abilities. ICAP is designed to maximize on neuroplasticity by providing therapy at a high dosage and frequency to make the most progress possible in a relatively short amount of time,” said Michelle Armour, MS, CCC-SLP, program lead clinician of the Northwestern Medicine Aphasia Center at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital.

Neuroplasticity is the ability of the nervous system to reorganize its structure, functions or connections after injuries, such as a stroke or traumatic brain injury. These reorganized pathways and new connections move functions from a damaged area of the brain to other undamaged areas.

“There are ten principles of neuroplasticity that have been found to drive positive change. A few of those include ‘use it or lose’, repetition and intensity,” said Armour.

Full-time ICAP participants undergo six hours of therapy four days a week for four weeks. A part-time option offers four hours of therapy each day. ICAP sessions include individual therapy, group therapy, social participation, and a dyad (one therapist and two clients).

In one-on-one sessions speech therapist Clare Goodman taught McClure strategies to overcome what he calls “the cobwebs in my brain.” One technique involves picturing the word and associated words in a ring around it.

“Before I was always stuck. It is like a Chinese finger trap. I would get locked. This program taught me to relax, release and think about the periphery of my thoughts,” said McClure. “I can sometimes get back to the word, or at least say something close enough to get my point across.”

McClure especially enjoyed the group sessions where Armour would lead the group in conversations with various topics to reflect meaningful interactions.

“The fire inside is to have conversation,” said McClure. “If you sat in solitude or just watched but didn’t engage, it wouldn’t clear the cobwebs. To converse intentionally and in a guided fashion is essential.”

McClure received homework at the end of each day that was personalized to help him focus on speaking and writing. Now he can write sentences with coherent structure and think while writing.

“What has happened here is breathtaking,” said McClure. “My family came to visit after not seeing me for several weeks and they were aghast at how fluently I was speaking. The fluency is the biggest difference for me. I was very choppy when I arrived. My vocabulary is coming back from the precipice.”

While at Marianjoy, McClure also completed the Driver Rehabilitation Program to ensure he can drive safely following his stroke.  He was able to regain strength, flexibility and balance by working out with personal trainers at Marianjoy’s Health and Fitness Center.

“My husband is a person who relies on his intellect in all his relationships. Although still intact, his struggle with aphasia seemed to make him feel like a lesser version of himself,” said David's wife Michelle McClure. “He leaves the ICAP with tools, resources and renewed confidence. As his wife, I benefited from the meetings that centered on the participants’ care. I feel supported, not only with the knowledge of how to help my husband, but also as a caregiver to help myself.”

McClure hopes to return to his job at Midmark, where he writes technical manuals and user guides for healthcare equipment. He says he isn’t yet back to the level he needs to explain complicated material, but he knows he is on his way.

“I missed feeling like I was able to think things through correctly, precisely, intelligently. It hurt my heart to not be who I was, but I’m getting to show myself again thanks to what they have done here,” said McClure.

Now back at home in Ohio, McClure will continue services through the Northwestern Medicine Aphasia Center at Marianjoy virtually. He hopes to shine a light on aphasia, which he describes as a quiet disorder that not enough people understand. According to the National Aphasia Association, nearly 2 million people in the USA have aphasia. About one third of strokes result in aphasia.

“There are so many people with aphasia who can’t say what they want to say,” said McClure. “The more we talk about aphasia, the better.”

To learn more about the Northwestern Medicine Aphasia Center at Marianjoy, visit nm.org/aphasiarehab.