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Riabilitazione nella fase degli esiti: L’approccio conversazionale. Acta Phoniatrica Latina,
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The potential effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on language functioning: Combining neuromodulation and behavioral intervention in aphasia
Full text linkAphasia is a highly disabling language disorder usually caused by a left stroke brain damage. Even if traditional language therapies have been proved to induce an adequate clinical recovery, a large percentage of patients are left with chronic deficits at 6 months post-stroke. Therefore, new strategies to common speech therapies are urgently needed in order to maximize the recovery from aphasia. The recent application of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to language rehabilitation has already provided promising results. This brief review gives an overview of the most important results achieved using this approach and discusses how the application of this treatment might potentiate aphasia recovery
Looking at ancillary systems for verb recovery: Evidence from non-invasive brain stimulation
No full textSeveral behavioural and neuroimaging studies have suggested that the language function is not restricted into the left areas but it involves regions not predicted by the classical language model. Accordingly, the Embodied Cognition theory postulates a close interaction between the language and the motor system. Indeed, it has been shown that non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) is effective for language recovery also when applied over sensorimotor regions, such as the motor cortex, the cerebellum and the spinal cord. We will review a series of NIBS studies in post-stroke aphasic people aimed to assess the impact of NIBS on verb recovery. We first present results which, following the classical assumption of the Broca's area as the key region for verb processing, have shown that the modulation over this area is efficacious for verb improvement. Then, we will present experiments which, according to Embodied Cognition, have directly investigated through NIBS the role of different sensorimotor regions in enhancing verb production. Since verbs play a crucial role for sentence construction which are most often impaired in the aphasic population, we believe that these results have important clinical implications. Indeed, they address the possibility that different structures might support verb processing
Conversational Therapy in Aphasia: From Behavioral Intervention to Neuromodulation
No full textThis article describes the conversational therapy approach for the treatment of persons with aphasia (PWAs). Around 1970s, this approach was inspired by a series of pragmatic principles and techniques to aphasia rehabilitation whose main objective was to set up a condition of communicative exchange with the PWA using his/her own available communicative resources. Indeed, although language represents the most powerful behavior that humans use for communicating, within the conversational approach any intentional action (i.e., gestures, body movements, facial expression, drawing) can be used to communicate. For this reason, its application is particularly suitable for severe PWAs whose damage has compromised all the modalities of language (i.e., production, comprehension, reading, and writing). In this perspective, the speech-language pathologist's (SLP's) goal is not necessarily focused on restoring the damaged linguistic functions, still today pursued by the cognitive approach, but to ameliorate the use of language by teaching the PWA compensatory, productive strategies, and strengthening his/her residual communicative abilities. In this review, the fundamental principles of the conversational approach together with its modalities of treatment, which emphasize the importance of an active interaction between the SLP and the PWA, are reported. A brief summary of recent experimental evidence which combines conversational therapy with a noninvasive brain stimulation technique, transcranial direct current stimulation, is also included
Editorial: New perspectives and methodologies in the diagnosis and rehabilitation of aphasia
Full text link: Aphasia is a highly disabling acquired language disorder, usually caused by left-lateralized brain damage [...]
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