Impairments of speech and language are important consequences of head injury as they compromise interaction between the patient and others. A large spectrum of communication deficits can occur. There are few reports in the literature of aphasia following closed head injury despite the common presentation of closed head injury. Herein we report two cases of closed head injuries with differing fo...

BACKGROUND Studies of therapy with people with aphasia tend to use impairment-based and functional measures of outcome. The views of participants are not formally evaluated. Current health and socialcare practice requires intervention to be explicitly client-centred and evidence-based. It is therefore important to investigate the broader effects of speech and language therapy. AIMS To explore...

Aphasia is a language disorder affecting more than one million people in the US. While language function has traditionally been the focus of neuroimaging research, other cognitive functions are affected in this population, which has implications not only for those specific processes but also for the interaction of language and other cognitive functions. Resting state fMRI (rs-fMRI) is a practic...

PURPOSE This systematic review summarizes evidence for intensity of treatment and constraint-induced language therapy (CILT) on measures of language impairment and communication activity/participation in individuals with stroke-induced aphasia. METHOD A systematic search of the aphasia literature using 15 electronic databases (e.g., PubMed, CINAHL) identified 10 studies meeting inclusion/excl...

Aphasia is a common result of stroke, affecting over one million Americans. Currently, intensive speech therapy is the mainstay of treatment, although its efficacy has been variable at best. Recent years have seen the emergence of non-invasive brain stimulation, specifically Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS), as potential treatments for p...

Aphasia is one of the most striking cognitive sequels of strokes and other cerebral lesions, and attempts to rehabilitate aphasic patients have been undertaken for many years. Following a brief overview of the epidemiology and the clinical characteristics of aphasia, the chapter presents the major traditional approaches to rehabilitation. They include the stimulation approach (also called class...

BACKGROUND Stroke is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. Aphasia among stroke survivors is common. Current speech and language therapy (SLT) strategies have only limited effectiveness in improving aphasia. A possible adjunct to SLT for improving SLT outcomes might be non-invasive brain stimulation by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to modulate cortical excitability...

BACKGROUND Constraint Induced Aphasia Therapy (CIAT) has been shown to be effective in the treatment of aphasia, but clinicians have expressed concern regarding how far CIAT is practical to implement in clinical practice. OBJECTIVE To determine whether CIAT delivered in a less-intense, lower dose, reduced constraint and volunteer-led format could produce positive outcomes in people with chron...

Following Wepman (1953), the process of recovery from aphasia is seen as involving stimulation, motivation, and facilitation. The most adequate studies of aphasia therapy outcome focus on facilitation to the virtual exclusion of stimulation and motivation, although clinical experience suggests their importance. Motivation includes both the subjective and experiential aspects of the patient's re...

Self-delivered speech therapy provides an opportunity for individualised dosage as a complement to the speech-therapy regime in the long-term rehabilitation pathway. Few apps for speech therapy have been subject to clinical trials, especially on a self-delivered platform. In a crossover design study, the Comprehensive Aphasia Test (CAT) and Cookie Theft Picture Description (CTPD) were used to m...