1Clinical Neuropsychology, Neurosciences Center, AIIMS, New Delhi
2Dept. of Neurology, AIIMS, New Delhi
Paper was awarded S C Gupta best Paper Award in 41th Annual National Conference of Indian Association of Clinical Psychologist, held at SRM Chennai on 28th Feb-2nd March 2014
Aphasia is the most striking cognitive sequels of strokes & attempts to rehabilitate patients have been undertaken for many years. Neuropsychological rehabilitation (NR) reduces the cognitive, emotional, psychosocial & behavioural deficits caused by an insult to the brain. Therefore, a Comprehensive NR (CNR) with aphasia therapy was designed and aimed to improve the language functioning of patients suffering from stroke.
On an OPD level, 5 cases of post stroke aphasia after 8 months to 1.5 years of stroke with education > 10 years, age 37 to 65 years were included. ABA design was used where neuropsychological assessment with Indian Aphasia Battery (IAB) assessing 5 domains. The CNR comprised of NR along with Aphasia Therapy. NR Sessions lasted for 4–8 weeks.
Wilcoxon sign rank test reveals that the neuropsychological assessment post CNR shows a marked improvement in the total IAB scores & Acoustic Problems. The other domains also show the effectiveness of the CNR with aphasia therapy which are clinically, but not statistically significant due to the small sample.
Therefore, a larger sample size is needed to prove the effectiveness of this programme. A CNR with aphasia therapy can help in improving the language & quality of life of patients suffering from stroke.
Aphasia, Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, Stroke, Neuropsychology
