A randomised trial of social support group intervention for people with aphasia: A Novel application of virtual reality

Abstract

About a third of strokes cause aphasia, or language loss, with profound consequences for the person's social participation and quality of life. These problems may be mitigated by group social support. But this intervention is not available to all individuals. This study investigated whether it is feasible to deliver group social support to people with aphasia via a multiuser , virtual reality platform. It also explored the indicative effects of intervention and the costs. Intervention aimed to promote wellbeing and communicative success. It enabled participants to form new social connections and share experiences of living with aphasia. It comprised 14 sessions delivered over 6 months and was led by community based coordinators and volunteers. Feasibility measures comprised: recruitment and retention rates, compliance with intervention and assessment of treatment fidelity. Effects of intervention were explored using a waitlist randomised controlled design, with outcome measures of wellbeing, communication, social connectedness and quality of life. Two intervention groups were randomised to an immediate condition and two were randomised to a delayed condition. The main analysis explored scores on the measures between two time points, between which those in the immediate condition had received intervention, but those in the delayed group had not (yet). A comprehensive approach to economic data collection ensured that all costs of treatment delivery were recorded. Feasibility findings showed that the recruitment target was met (N = 34) and 85.3% (29/34) of participants completed intervention. All groups ran the 14 sessions as planned, and participants attended a mean of 11.4 sessions (s.d. 2.8), which was 81.6% of the intended dose. Fidelity checking showed minimal drift from the manualised intervention. No significant change was observed on any of the outcome measures, although the study was not powered to detect these. Costs varied across the four groups, from £7,483-£12,562 British Pounds Sterling ($10,972-$18,419 US dollars), depending on travel costs, the relative contributions of volunteers and the number of hardware loans that were needed. The results suggest that a larger trial of remote group support,

Adjunctive Approaches to Aphasia Rehabilitation: A Review on Efficacy and Safety

“…Very recently, Marshall et al [ 120 ] published a randomized controlled design in which a group therapy was virtually implemented in EVA Park, with patients, volunteers, and coordinators present in the VR environments. Two intervention groups were randomized to an immediate therapy condition and two were randomized to a delayed condition.…”

Intelligent Virtual Reality Therapy Systems for Motor and Cognitive Rehabilitation: A Survey based on Clinical Trial Studies

“…Most of the Clinical Trial groups listed used the methodology generally involving two groups, corresponding to 95.72% of the articles presented, a Control Group (CG) in which they apply traditional treatment procedures and the Intervention Group using Virtual Reality (GRV) with application of Virtual Reality during the treatment sessions. Some studies showed more than two groups such as Marshall [154] that used 6 groups (0.85%), Radder et al [155], Ramos et al [149], Kakoschke et al [132], Tuba et al [122], Bortone, I [118], Gerard Fluet [115], Perin, Alessandro, et al [105], Amin, Ashfaq M., et al [104], Manuli et al [88], Gerard Fluet [115] conducted their research with 3 groups (7.69%), Erdogan et al [133], Liu, Wang, et al [109], Dehghan, Fateme, et al [106] worked with 4 groups (2.56%) and 2 articles such as Ortiz-Catalan et al [94], Amaral et al [56] that used only 1 group (1.70%). Regarding the work by Kim et al [140] 2 intervention groups divided by age group.…”

Innovative Approaches to Aphasia Rehabilitation: a Review on Efficacy, Safety and Controversies

“…Very recently, Marshall et al [119] published a randomized controlled design in which a group therapy was virtually implemented in EVA Park, with patients, volunteers, and coordinators present in the VR environments. Two intervention groups were randomized to an immediate therapy condition and two were randomized to a delayed condition.…”