Improving Language Abilities in Adults with Aphasia Using Personalized Speech Therapy

What this Trial Is About

Aphasia is a language impairment often caused by brain damage, affecting understanding, speaking, reading, and writing. This study aims to develop and evaluate a semantic-based language treatment for individuals with acquired language disorders such as aphasia, including those caused by stroke or dementia and primary progressive aphasia. Researchers want to understand both the treatments impact on language abilities and the related brain activity changes over time. Participants will receive individualized language therapy focused on semantic or phonological strategies to improve word finding, sentence formation, and storytelling abilities. The treatment is tailored to each participants language and cognitive level, based on baseline testing. Sessions occur twice weekly for 10 weeks. A control group will receive standard speech-language intervention for comparison. Participants will undergo assessments before treatment, immediately after, and two months post-treatment. These include cognitive and language tests, electroencephalography EEG recordings, and magnetic resonance imaging MRI scans to monitor brain activity and language improvements. The study measures changes in naming ability, aphasia severity, and language task performance over about one year. This comprehensive evaluation will help understand both short- and long-term effects of the treatments.

Enhancing Language Function in Aphasia