Simulated In-home Teletreatment for Anomia

Abstract

This pilot study explored the feasibility of in-home teletreatment for patients with post-stroke anomia. Three participants over 65 years of age suffering from post-stroke anomia were treated in this pre/post-intervention case study. They received 12 speech therapy teletreatments (two sessions/week for 6 weeks) aimed at improving confrontation naming skills. Half of the failed items from a set of 120 preselected stimuli were trained during treatment (Block A-trained stimuli) while the other half served as controls (Block B-untrained stimuli). Variables measured were: 1) efficacy of treatment (performance on Block-A vs. Block B Stimuli), and 2) participants’ satisfaction with teletreatment (using a French adaptation of the Telemedicine satisfaction questionnaire). All participants showed clinically relevant improvement on confrontation naming of trained items and less improvement for untrained items. The researchers also obtained high satisfaction scores on the questionnaire (above 57/60). This pilot study supports the feasibility of speech therapy teletreatments applied to neurological language disorders.