There is a continued need for empirical data supporting thetreatment of people with aphasia in the acute care settingincluding the use of modified melodic intonation therapy

ed from: Conkly, D., Novac, E., Boissy, A. Bethoux, F., & Chemali, K. (2012). The effects of modified melodic intonation therapy on nonfluent aphasia: A pilot study. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 55, 1462–1471. Source of funding and disclosure of interest: The research project was internally funded; no external funding was reported. The authors reported no conflicts of interest. There is a continued need for empirical data supporting the treatment of people with aphasia in the acute care setting including the use of modified melodic intonation therapy Miechelle McKelvey1 and Kristy Weissling2 (Commentary authors) 1 Department of Communication Disorders, University of Nebraska-Kearney, Kearney, Nebraska, USA; 2 Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA Corresponding author — M. McKelvey, email [email protected] Q: What are the immediate effects of Modified Melodic Intonation Therapy (MMIT) on the modified repetition and responsive subtests of the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) in stroke patients with Broca’s aphasia? 79 digitalcommons.unl.edu 80 from Ev idence-Based Communicat ion Assessment and Intervention 7 (2013) was administered during the acute phase of patient recovery, in contrast to its typical use in the postacute phase. The treatment group received therapy in which the target phrase was spoken only one time at the beginning of the session. All other presentations of the stimuli were sung after the initial presentation had been spoken aloud once. The target phrase was modeled multiple times, and then the participant was instructed to sing the phrase. While the client sang the phrase, the therapist assisted him/her in tapping out the rhythm of the phrase with the left hand. Participants in the control group were also given sessions 10–15 minutes in length. These sessions included discussions of the participant’s impairment, different types of treatment, possible outcomes, and concomitant issues commonly associated with aphasia (e.g. depression and withdrawal). Outcomes: A pre/post-criterion measure based on subtests of the WAB (Kertesz, 2006) was used to measure change. No validity measures were reported for the criterion measure. Two nursing mangers blind to treatment assignment presented the pretest and the posttest measure; they were not present during the treatment or control condition. A board-certified music therapist worked for 10–15 min with individuals in the treatment and control conditions and was blinded to the pretest and posttest scores until after the session was complete. In addition to the pre/posttest scores, the number of times the participant was prompted to sing the phrase, how many times the phrase was completed, and the number of partial phrases produced were recorded in the treatment group. However, the data reported in this study focused only on pre/posttest scores of the criterion measure for the treatment and control groups. Attrition: With regard to the control group, out of 14 enrolled participants, 10 had pre/posttest scores for Visit 1 and 8 had pre/posttest scores for Visit 2. This represents an attrition of 28.5% (4 participants) at Visit 1 and total attrition of 42.8% by Visit 2 (6 participants). The treatment group started with 16 participants, with 14 completing Visit 1 and 9 completing Visit 2. This is an attrition of 12.5% (two participants) at Visit 1 and 43.7% total attrition by Visit 2 (7 participants).