Speech Therapy for Aphasia: Comparing Two Treatments

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Stroke
• Interventions: Behavioral: Semantic Feature Analysis therapy; Behavioral: Phonomotor Therapy

• Registration Number: NCT02153710
• Lead Sponsor: VA Office of Research and Development

Brief Summary

This is a behavioral speech therapy trial for individuals who have suffered a stroke on the left side of the brain and have difficulty speaking. The name of this disorder is called "aphasia." Individuals in this study will receive one of two treatments. The first is a phonological (sound level) treatment and the second is a semantic (word level) treatment. Individuals in both groups will receive 60 hours of therapy for free (2 hours/day, 5 days/week, 6 weeks).

Detailed Description

Purpose: The ultimate goal of anomia treatment should be to achieve gains in exemplars trained in the therapy session as well as generalization to untrained exemplars and contexts. Phonomotor treatment (PMT) has shown such effects but has not yet been compared to a commonly used lexical/semantic based treatment (semantic feature analysis; SFA).

Methods: In a between group randomized controlled trial, 58 persons with aphasia characterized by anomia and phonological dysfunction were randomized to receive 56-60 hours of intensively delivered treatment over 6 weeks with testing pre-, post- and three-months post treatment termination.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2014-03-11
• Study First Submitted: 2014-03-20
• Study First Submitted QC: 2014-05-30
• Study First Posted: 2014-06-03
• Primary Completion: 2017-08-21
• Study Completion: 2017-09-29
• Results First Submitted: 2018-06-18
• Status Verified: 2019-07
• Results First Submitted QC: 2019-07-26
• Last Update Submitted: 2019-07-26
• Results First Posted: 2019-09-06
• Last Update Posted: 2019-09-06

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 58

Inclusion Criteria

• Single, left-hemisphere stroke
• English as primary language prior to stroke

Exclusion Criteria

• Other neurological disorders
• Untreated depression

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Semantic Feature Analysis therapy	Semantic Feature Analysis therapy	Current standard of care therapy
Phonomotor therapy	Phonomotor Therapy	Experimental group

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Spoken Word Production (Confrontation Naming)	Pretreatment to 3 months following treatment termination change	Reporting a change in percent correct scores pre-treatment versus 3-months post treatment. (0-100% scale)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Response Latency	Pretreatment to 3 months following treatment termination change	Change in response latency of confrontation naming pre-treatment versus 3 months post treatment.
Verbs Correctly Named	Pretreatment to 3 months following treatment termination change	Change in confrontation naming of verbs were scored for accuracy and percent correct (0% to 100%) was analyzed before versus 3 months post treatment.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

VA Puget Sound Health Care System Seattle Division, Seattle, WA; 🇺🇸 Seattle, Washington, United States