Stroke survivor Steve Parnell takes positive approach to recovery, student learning at IMPACT Practice Center and Tedy’s Team Center of Excellence in Stroke Recovery

Stephen Parnell sits in a room in the MGH Institute’s Sanders IMPACT Practice Center reading a passage about horse racing out loud. Every few sentences, he pauses when he reaches a word. One of those words was decade.

“I got to that one and thought, ‘How do you say that?’” recounts Parnell. “I can see it, but I can’t say what it says. It’s like ‘Steve, I know you want to say it, but think about it and let it come when it’s ready.’”

A Profound Change

A few years ago, words were his specialty.  Married with a son and a daughter, Parnell used to travel around the country giving presentations as managing director of Applied Insights for Hartford Funds. Then, on January 31, 2018, as he prepared for a trip to Maine to give one of those presentations, Parnell had a stroke. He spent eight days in intensive care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He couldn’t swallow water, or anything that hadn’t been thickened with a specialty powder, for 86 days, and was unable to talk for 43 days, communicating with family and friends by writing words in a notebook. 

Since those early days, he has regained his ability to talk but still has aphasia, a condition that can happen after a stroke affects the left side of the brain which controls speech and language. For Parnell, aphasia makes it hard to say certain words easily. Instead, he has to go searching for them. 

“Aphasia is not commonly recognized or understood despite there being an estimated 2 - 4 million people living with aphasia in the United States, per the National Aphasia Association,” explains Suzanne Pennington, Instructor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders who has worked with Parnell in the Aphasia Center. “Most people have never heard of it until it happens to them. There is no time limit on recovery and people can continue to improve for years, even decades, after acquiring aphasia.”

To help unlock those words, Parnell has been working with MGH Institute speech pathology graduate students since 2021. In addition to speech exercises, the sessions usually include meditation. One newer meditation that has been particularly helpful is one where Parnell is trying to go to an inner room. He says that is similar to what he has to do to access the word he wants to say.

“It’s almost like a library,” explains Parnell. “The room is where the word is. You go to the shelf, go to the book, you open to the actual page, and you get to that one word.” 

Working with Students

Parnell worked with HeeEun Jeon, a second-year MS-SLP student in the fall 2024 semester. Jeon is the one who introduced him to the inner circle meditation, timed how long it took him to finish reading the passage about horse racing, and then told Parnell how much faster he was than he thought.

“It was a pure joy, my pleasure to work with him, said Jeon. “He brings positive vibes, which makes it very easy for any clinician to feel comfortable from the very beginning. He is a highly motivated individual who wants to improve not only his language skills, but his overall physical and mental health.” 

Parnell has interacted with many of students at the MGH Institute through one-on-one treatment sessions and meeting with groups of students to help them learn more about aphasia. 

“The thing I love more than anything else is working with the students,” said Parnell, who told one of groups of students he met, “We were learning from you, and you were learning from us.”

A Community of Impact

Parnell is involved with the MGH Institute beyond his interactions with students. He has taken part in the conversation group run by the Aphasia Center where he met with others with aphasia. He has also connected with others in the community by participating in events coordinated involving Tedy’s Team Center of Excellence in Stroke Recovery at the MGH Institute. He joined the 2023 and 2024 Tedy’s Team Center Waterfront Wellness Days held at the New England Aquarium where he especially enjoyed seeing the penguins. 

He also participated in the MGH Neurorecovery Program’s Art of Recovery Day that Tedy’s Team Center co-sponsored this past summer. The event was designed to accelerate recovery in innovative ways through a lens of art and creativity; Parnell took advantage of the opportunity to draw and take in a panel. He was impressed by panelist Jack Smiley, a stroke survivor who was the most positive. 

Despite the challenges Parnell has faced, his own positivity is obvious to anyone who meets him. He enthusiastically contributes to student learning and often expresses gratitude for his family, friends, therapists, and the runners from Tedy’s Team who raise money to support people with stroke. 

“When you look at someone, you can see the positive that they can bring,” said Parnell.  

Do you have a story the Office of Strategic Communications should know about? If so, let us know.