Influence of Rehabilitation on Language Skills in Aphasic Patients

Abstract

•The influence of language rehabilitation on specific language skills (speaking, understanding, writing, and reading) was investigated in 281 aphasic patients (162 reeducated and 119 controls) who were subjected to a second examination no less than six months after the first. The relationship of the following factors to improvement was studied: (a) time between onset of aphasia and first examination; (b) type of aphasia; (c) overall severity of aphasia on first examination; (d) presence or absence of rehabilitation between first and subsequent examination. It was found that rehabilitation had a significant positive effect on improvement in all language skills. Time between onset and first examination and overall severity of aphasia were negatively related to improvement. The relationship of type of aphasia to improvement was not significant. Additional evidence of the efficacy of rehabilitation is provided by experience with patients who began language therapy several months or years after the onset of their language disorder.

Single subject controlled experiments in aphasia: The science and the state of the science

“…During that time at least 20 large-scale group treatment studies, enrolling 60 or more patients, and several smaller group studies including at least 10 participants, were published (see, for example, Basso, Capitani, & Vignolo, 1979;Vignolo, 1964;Wertz et al, 1986). Unlike the findings of psychotherapy studies, the results of these group studies largely showed that treatment results in general improvement in language, although, in some cases the treatment effects were not particularly strong or were lacking (Lincoln et al, 1984).…”

EFNS Guidelines on cognitive rehabilitation: report of an EFNS Task Force

“…This resulted in the exclusion of the three large studies of Basso et al (1979), Shewan and Kertesz (1985) and Poeck et al (1989), all indicating significant benefits of treatment. Similarly, single case studies (class IIb) are not considered in the Cochrane reviews.…”

Representation of Linguistic Rules in the Brain: Evidence from Training an Aphasic Patient to Produce Past Tense Verb Morphology

“…Current techniques in speech therapy are least successful with the most severely aphasic patients (Basso, Capitani, & Vignolo, 1979). Despite decades of research into the linguistic mechanisms of aphasia, few new therapeutic modalities are available, especially for the most severely afflicted patients.…”