Investigators at Columbia University in New York City, and at Jacksonville University in Florida, have published the results of a two-year longitudinal study of benefits accruing to persons with aphasia (PWA) through participation in offerings at a community-based Aphasia Center. The goals of the study were to document changes in confrontation naming, structured discourse performance, aphasia battery scores, measures of functional communication, and in quality-of-life ratings in a diverse group of subjects. A secondary goal was to look for candidate predictors of change.
The subjects were 27 PWA attending Brooks Rehabilitation Aphasia Center in Jacksonville. Their performances in the specified areas were evaluated before entering the Brooks program, after one year, and again after two years. Assessment instruments included, for example, the Western Aphasia Battery – Revised (WAB-R), the Assessment for Living with Aphasia (ALA), and the Communicative Effectiveness Index (CETI). Mean age of the participants was 63.7 y/o, with 12 females and 15 males, representing a diversity of races and ethnicities. The Center program embraces the Life Participation Approach to Aphasia, and offers a variety of activities throughout the day including book group discussions, training on technologies and apps, therapy, and music activities that may change from day to day. Members are encouraged to take leadership roles in the activities, including field trips to museums, restaurants, or sports events. The activities thus provides opportunities for diverse social and communicative interactions in enriched and supportive environments. Data were collected at the three evaluation points – at start, after 1 year, and after 2 years – and were evaluated using the SPSS software using a linear mixed model, in order to determine significant group improvements over the study durations, and to calculate correlations between changes on the various measures.
Data analyses showed that – after one year – participants’ scores improved significantly on the WAB-R, on object and action naming, and on all communication measures whether reported by participants themselves or by communication partners. At 2-years, these improvements were maintained save for self-reported measures of functional communication. After 2 years, structured discourse showed significant improvements, with increased average word production. No predictors of significant change were identified. Overall, language, functional communication, and quality of life are all shown to benefit.
For further reading: L. A. Edmonds, J. Morgan, 2022, Two-Year Longitudinal Evaluation of Community Aphasia Center Participation on Linguistic, Functional Communication, and Quality of Life Measures Across People with a Range of Aphasia Presentations. AJSLP, 31(5S): 2378–2394. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_AJSLP-21-00308