Aphasia Rehabilitation: Decision Support Model

Abstract

Aphasia impacts functional communication, daily activities, and social relationships. Aphasia is treated with traditional therapeutic methods, which involve repeating language tests and observing the progress of their responses. Technology is being used to investigate the activities of the brain. However, some of these technologies are very robust, have high costs for implementation, and require a team of specialized professionals to handle them. This paper aims to develop an aphasia screening model to support the conventional therapy used by speech-language pathologists in rehabilitation centers. The model was created in the first instance to test the instruments and procedures, focusing on the brain activation of aphasic participants through the criteria of lesion location (affected hemisphere) and hemiparesis (right or left side). Furthermore, secondly, to support conventional therapy in the rehabilitation process of the aphasic. The model used electroencephalography (EEG) as a non-invasive instrument and object naming task as a linguistic test, described in the adult language paradigm proposed in 2017 by the American Society for Functional Neuroradiology. We tested the method with 11 aphasic participants diagnosed with post-stroke aphasia in rehabilitation. We conclude that the results can support the health professional’s decision in conventional therapy to adjust the conduct of language stimulation
with a personalized and monitored approach throughout the rehabilitation process.