The Effects of Yoga Breathing Before Motor Speech Practice in Acquired Apraxia of Speech: An n-of-1 Trial.

A previous study discovered that two speakers with moderate apraxia of speech increased their sequential motion rates after unilateral forced-nostril breathing (UFNB) practiced as an adjunct to speech-language therapy in an AB repeated-measures design. The current study sought to: (1) delineate possible UFNB plus practice effects from practice effects alone in motor speech skills; (2) examine the relationships between UFNB integrity, participant-reported stress levels, and motor speech performance; and (3) sample a participant-led UFNB training schedule to contribute to the literature's growing understanding of UFNB dosage. A single-subject (n-of-1 trial), ABAB reversal design was used across four motor speech behaviors.

Precision rehabilitation for aphasia by patient age, sex, aphasia severity, and time since stroke? A prespecified, systematic review-based, individual participant data, network, subgroup meta-analysis.

Background: Stroke rehabilitation interventions are routinely personalized to address individuals' needs, goals, and challenges based on evidence from aggregated randomized controlled trials (RCT) data and meta-syntheses. Individual participant data (IPD) meta-analyses may better inform the development of precision rehabilitation approaches, quantifying treatment responses while adjusting for confounders and reducing ecological bias.

Aim: We explored associations between speech and language therapy (SLT) interventions frequency (days/week), intensity (h/week), and dosage (total SLT-hours) and language outcomes for different age, sex, aphasia severity, and chronicity subgroups by undertaking prespecified subgroup network meta-analyses of the RELEASE database.

RELEASE: a protocol for a systematic review based, individual participant data, meta- and network meta-analysis, of complex speech-language therapy interventions for stroke-related aphasia.

Background: Speech and language therapy (SLT) benefits people with aphasia following stroke. Group level summary statistics from randomised controlled trials hinder exploration of highly complex SLT interventions and a clinically relevant heterogeneous population. Creating a database of individual participant data (IPD) for people with aphasia aims to allow exploration of individual and therapy-related predictors of recovery and prognosis.

Performance differences between aphasia and healthy aging on an executive function test battery.

Executive function (EF) deficits commonly co-occur with other linguistic and non-linguistic deficits in aphasia. The questions about whether, and to what extent, people with aphasia (PWA) present deficits on different executive functions (EFs) is relatively understudied. In this study, four EFs, set-switching, updating, inhibition, and dual task processing were evaluated in aphasia and healthy groups.

Psychosomatic and Physical Well-Being Factors After Mind-Body Interventions in a Hospital Setting.

Context: Mind-body interventions encompass a variety of treatments that directly affect health. Researchers have found that yoga can decrease symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as improve dietary patterns, enhance physical function and capacity, and enrich sleep. Research has shown that mindfulness can have psychological and physiological benefits and treat symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Brief mindfulness meditation group training in aphasia: exploring attention, language and psychophysiological outcomes.

Background: Stroke is currently the leading cause of long-term disability in adults in the United States. There is a need for accessible, low-cost treatments of stroke-related disabilities such as aphasia.

Aims: To explore an intervention for aphasia utilizing mindfulness meditation (MM).

Integrative intervention: a new perspective and brief review in aphasia.

Purpose: While integrative treatment practices have become a popular treatment in different areas of study, its use in the field of aphasiology is still limited. The following paper is an attempt to address the different alternative practices that could potentially be used to remediate aphasia.

Method: A narrative review was completed regarding integrative intervention that could potentially apply to aphasia population.

Mindfulness meditation in aphasia: A case report.

Background: Despite the potential behavioral and neurological benefits of Mindfulness Meditation (MM), its use in treating stroke related communication disabilities appears to be underexplored. Specifically, aphasia, a language disorder resulting from stroke, may be amenable to the benefits of MM because of the observed attention problems often underlying the language symptoms.

Objective: The current paper presents a case report of an adult with aphasia who was trained in MM.

Unilateral forced nostril breathing and aphasia--exploring unilateral forced nostril breathing as an adjunct to aphasia treatment: a case series.

Background And Purpose: Unilateral forced nostril breathing (UFNB), a yogic pranayama technique, improves verbal and spatial cognition in healthy adults. The use of UFNB as an adjunct in aphasia recovery has not been explored. The current study investigated the use and potential benefit of combining UFNB with conventional speech-language therapy.

Yogic breathing and Ayurveda in aphasia: a case study.

Purpose: We present a case study of a woman who used yogic breathing as Ayurvedic medicine in her recovery from poststroke aphasia. Ayurvedic medicine is one of the most ancient medicines of the world, but it is not widely used for aphasia rehabilitation in many Western countries. The description of this case aims to further the understanding of the benefits that this type of medicine may provide to poststroke patients living with aphasia.

Exploring the benefits of unilateral nostril breathing practice post-stroke: attention, language, spatial abilities, depression, and anxiety.

Objective: Unilateral nostril breathing (UNB) is a yogic pranayama technique that has been shown to improve verbal and spatial cognition in neurologically intact individuals. Early study of UNB in healthy individuals has shown benefits for attention and memory. This preliminary study explored whether UNB influenced various measures of attention, language, spatial abilities, depression, and anxiety in post-stroke individuals, both with and without aphasia.

Further evidence of auditory extinction in aphasia.

Purpose: Preliminary research (Shisler, 2005) suggests that auditory extinction in individuals with aphasia (IWA) may be connected to binding and attention. In this study, the authors expanded on previous findings on auditory extinction to determine the source of extinction deficits in IWA.

Method: Seventeen IWA (M(age) = 53.

Effects of mindfulness meditation on three individuals with aphasia.

Background: There is evidence to suggest that people with aphasia (PWA) may have deficits in attention stemming from the inefficient allocation of resources. The inaccurate perception of task demand, or sense of effort, may underlie the misallocation of the available attention resources. Given the lack of treatment options for improving attention in aphasia, Mindfulness Meditation, shown to improve attention in neurologically intact individuals, may prove effective in increasing attention in PWA.

Performance of Individuals with Left-Hemisphere Stroke and Aphasia and Individuals with Right Brain Damage on Forward and Backward Digit Span Tasks.

BACKGROUND: Working memory (WM) limitations have been suggested as a significant source of the linguistic processing deficits observed in individuals with aphasia (IWA). Digits forward (DF) and digits backward (DB) span tasks are frequently used to study WM in both healthy and clinical populations. Unfortunately, only a handful of studies have explored digit span in IWA.