EILEEN CARLETON HAS A whimsical talent for hand signals. When the 65-year-old stroke victim draws a vertical line in the air,her family knows she is referring to a very slim friend of her son.
But a lexicon of hand gestures —no matter how inventive — and the few dozen words left in Carleton's vocabulary following her stroke are inadequate for conveying even the most basic wishes, observations, or questions to her family. Through a pilot study at the School of Medicine, however, Carleton has learned to communicate using a specially designed computer program that has restored not only her ability to express herself, but also, family members and therapists say, her enthusiasm for life.