Investigating Factors of Aphasia Recovery

EasyChair Preprint 6506

Abstract

In the present study we attempt to investigate the specifics of the association between recovery of particular language indices and possible predicting factors focusing on three language domains: speech output, comprehension and naming. 

Forty-one patients with acquired aphasia due to a left single stroke were recruited. CT and/or MRI scans were obtained for each patient and lesion sites were identified and coded by two independent neuroradiologists for 16 predetermined left hemisphere areas. The total number of lesioned areas served as an index of lesion extent (lesion score). Mean time post onset for the first examination was 18.68 days and for the second was 305.53 days. To assess language deficits, we used the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination – Short Form and the Boston Naming Test. Articulation rate and speech rate were calculated based on a speech sample elicited from the Cookie Theft Picture for BDAE-SF.

The BNT score and specific BDAE-SF subscales, that is the three auditory comprehension subscales (words, commands, complex material), as well as speech and articulation rate were included in the analyses. Comparison between the two times showed that mean performance was significantly higher for all measures in the second examination. In addition, score differences between testing times were not shown to be generally affected by lesion extent, age of onset, and years of formal schooling. Interestingly, there was a significant effect of frontal, temporal and parietal lesions on performance in the acute/subacute, but not in the chronic phase.

Although overall improvement of several language indices was evident in our patients, our findings do not provide a clear-cut answer with regard to demographic or lesion factors that may have contributed to the recovery of such language functions. Particular lesion loci seemed to affect performance in the acute/subacute but not in the chronic phase.

Keyphrases: Lesions, aphasia, recovery

@booklet{EasyChair:6506,
  author    = {Georgios Papageorgiou and Dimitrios Kasselimis and Georgia Angelopoulou and Dimitrios Tsolakopoulos and George Velonakis Velonakis and Efstratios Karavasilis Karavasilis and Argyro Tountopoulou and Eleni Korompoki and Nikolaos L. Kelekis and Sophia Vassilopoulou and Constantin Potagas},
  title     = {Investigating Factors of Aphasia Recovery},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 6506},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2021}}