Exploring Treatment Fidelity in Persons With Aphasia Autonomously Practicing With Computerized Therapy Materials.

Purpose: Current computer technologies permit independent practice for people with cognitive-communicative disorders. Previous research has investigated compliance rates and outcome changes but not treatment fidelity per se during practice. Our aim was to examine adherence to procedures (treatment fidelity) and accuracy while persons with aphasia independently practiced word production using interactive, multimodal, user-controlled, word-level icons on computers.

Neuroimaging Correlates of Post-Stroke Aphasia Rehabilitation in a Pilot Randomized Trial of Constraint-Induced Aphasia Therapy.

BACKGROUND Recovery from post-stroke aphasia is a long and complex process with an uncertain outcome. Various interventions have been proposed to augment the recovery, including constraint-induced aphasia therapy (CIAT). CIAT has been applied to patients suffering from post-stroke aphasia in several unblinded studies to show mild-to-moderate linguistic gains.

Constraint-Induced Aphasia Therapy for Treatment of Chronic Post-Stroke Aphasia: A Randomized, Blinded, Controlled Pilot Trial.

Background: To provide a preliminary estimate of efficacy of constraint-induced aphasia therapy (CIAT) when compared to no-intervention in patients with chronic (>1 year) post-stroke aphasia in order to plan an appropriately powered randomized controlled trial (RCT).

Material And Methods: We conducted a pilot single-blinded RCT. 24 patients were randomized: 14 to CIAT and 10 to no-intervention.

Reading and writing with aphasia in the 21st century: technological applications of supported reading comprehension and written expression.

Purpose: People with aphasia struggle to keep up with today's text-based communication, because of their reduced ability to comprehend and compose written messages. Therefore, the communication gap between people with aphasia and the communities around them continues to grow. The purpose of this article is to highlight the literature regarding supported reading comprehension and written expression techniques for people with aphasia and to discuss the role of these interventions in the context of Web-based communication and information sharing.

Poststroke aphasia recovery assessed with functional magnetic resonance imaging and a picture identification task.

Stroke patients often display deficits in language function, such as correctly naming objects. Our aim was to evaluate the reliability and the patterns of poststroke language recovery using a picture identification task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 4 T. Four healthy subjects and 4 subjects with left middle cerebral artery stroke with chronic (>1 year) aphasia were enrolled in the study.

Constraint-induced aphasia therapy stimulates language recovery in patients with chronic aphasia after ischemic stroke.

Background: Constraint-induced aphasia therapy (CIAT) offers potential benefits to individuals with history of aphasia-producing ischemic stroke. The goals of this pilot study were to implement the original German CIAT protocol, refine the treatment program, and confirm its efficacy in patients with chronic aphasia.

Material/methods: We translated and modified the original CIAT protocol to include a hierarchy of individual skill levels for semantic, syntactic, and phonological language production, while constraining non-use behaviors.

Reliability of fMRI for studies of language in post-stroke aphasia subjects.

Quantifying change in brain activation patterns associated with post-stroke recovery and reorganization of language function over time requires accurate understanding of inter-scan and inter-subject variability. Here we report inter-scan variability measures for fMRI activation patterns associated with verb generation (VG) and semantic decision/tone decision (SDTD) tasks in 4 healthy controls and 4 aphasic left middle cerebral artery (LMCA) stroke subjects. A series of 10 fMRI scans was completed on a 4T Varian scanner for each task for each subject, except for one stroke subject who completed 5 and 6 scans for SDTD and VG, thus yielding 35 and 36 total stroke subject scans for SDTD and VG, respectively.

Taste preference and rating of commercial and natural thickeners.

Dysphagia can negatively affect quality of life, nutritional status, and pulmonary status of individuals. The most common intervention for dysphagia is the use of thickening agents for liquids. This group study (n = 43) investigated the taste preference, taste ratings, and ranking for nectar-thick hot and cold beverages using three types of thickeners: SimplyThick, Thick-It, and noncommercially prepared natural thickeners.

Using memory strategies to improve 24-hour dietary recalls among older adults.

Dietitians commonly use 24-hour recall to obtain estimates of the typical food intakes for a population. This study was designed to determine whether using an encoding strategy or support at the time of retrieval improves older adults' 24-hour recall of food items and amounts consumed. The study included 17 older adults ranging from 74 to 91 years of age.