None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Aphasia is a language disorder that can affect a person's ability to speak, read, write and understand. Many individuals with post-stroke aphasia present with a symptom called perseveration. Perseveration results in a person repeatedly saying a word when they no longer intend to use that word. This study aims to investigate the cause of perseveration in post-stroke aphasia to guide the development of appropriate treatments for reducing perseveration. This study is a series of single case experimental design studies. The study has two parts. First, a series of case studies will be carried out to document how perseveration presents across individuals with aphasia. Participants will be given a number of language assessments to complete. The second part of the study is a facilitation session. This session will involve naming a series of pictures. The researcher will provide phonological cueing to determine whether this helps to decrease the rate of participants' perseverative errors. Up to 10 participants who demonstrate perseveration post-stroke will be recruited for the study. Participants will be recruited through Waitemata District Health Board in Auckland, New Zealand, Rodney Aphasia Group and Aphasia New Zealand. The maximum anticipated time that participants will participate in this study is approximately 5 hours. This time will be split across sessions and no session will be more than 1 hour in duration. Participants will participate in language assessments to determine how their language processing has been affected by aphasia and to identify how often perseveration occurs and how it presents. The data will be analysed to determine if cueing helps to reduce the occurrence of perseveration.
Interventions
The study primarily consists of language assessments which are observational. The final element of the study is a one-hour facilitation session. All sessions will be completed by the coordinating researcher (a qualified speech therapist). It is anticipated that there will be a total participation time of 4-6 hours. This time will be split across sessions and no session will be more than 1 hour in duration. All sessions for a given participant will be completed within a two week period (e.g. ~2-3
The study primarily consists of language assessments which are observational. The final element of the study is a one-hour facilitation session. All sessions will be completed by the coordinating researcher (a qualified speech therapist). It is anticipated that there will be a total participation time of 4-6 hours. This time will be split across sessions and no session will be more than 1 hour in duration. All sessions for a given participant will be completed within a two week period (e.g. ~2-3 sessions per week for two weeks/~a session every 2-3 days). All sessions are one-to-one between each participant and the coordinating researcher. The observational language sessions will involve participants completing the following language assessments: 1. PALPA Subtest 2 and 8 (session 2) 2. Comprehensive Aphasia Test (split across session 2 and 3) 3. Apraxia of Speech Rating Scale (session 1) 4. Pyramids and Palm Trees Test (session 3) 5. Philadelphia Naming Test (session 1 and repeated in session 4) Following these sessions, a final, facilitation session will be carried out in which the participants will complete the Philadelphia Naming Test again. During this administration, the coordinating researcher will provide phonological cueing (i.e. provide the participant with the initial sounds of the picture name to assist their naming) to half the test items. This is the cued condition. The participants will be asked to name the remaining test items without a cue (unfacilitated condition). All items in both cued and unfacilitated conditions will be presented within the same session and items will be pseudorandomised. This session will help to determine if phonological cueing reduces the number of perseverative errors participants make during confrontational naming (naming pictures). Intervention fidelity will not be assessed directly however the facilitation sessions will be video recorded and an independent rater will carry out inter-rater reliability on 20% of the data. In addition, the picture naming test used in the facilitation session is electronic and this will help ensure that each picture is automatically presented at the same presentation rate across participants and that the phonological cues (audio recordings) present to participants are identical.
Sponsors
The University of Queensland
Study design
Allocation
Non-randomised trial
Intervention model
Other
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
To be eligible participants must: 1. Have had a stroke 2. Have a diagnosed post-stroke aphasia 3. Perseverate on at least 20% of items during administration of the Philadelphia Naming Test. 4. Have sufficient English proficiency to complete the language assessments
Exclusion criteria
The following are exclusion criteria for this study: 1. Formal diagnosis of dementia 2. Profound apraxia of speech 3. Unable to give informed consent 4. Comorbid learning, neurological or psychiatric disabilities/disorders 5. Have significant uncorrected vision or hearing impairment 6. Significant fatigue that is limiting their participation in daily rehabilitation as documented in their clinical notes.
Outcome results
None listed