206 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
The goal of this clinical trial is to learn whether healthy volunteers are more successful at understanding people with aphasia if they have first viewed an aphasia identification (ID) card. The main questions this study aims to answer are: * Does viewing an aphasia ID card improve healthy volunteers' understanding of the language errors made by people with aphasia? * Does viewing an aphasia ID card improve healthy volunteers' understanding of people with aphasia who make long pauses in their speech? Researchers will compare aphasia ID cards to a control condition (no ID card) to see whether aphasia ID cards improve healthy volunteers' understanding. Healthy volunteers will visit the study site for a single session (about 2 hours long). During the session they will: * Complete brief tests of their vision, hearing and thinking * Listen to sentences produced by a speaker with aphasia while their eye movements are recorded * Complete a survey about the experience of listening to the speaker with aphasia
The investigator proposes to examine the effects of excitatory transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) combined with semantic feature analysis (SFA) language therapy to improve word-finding abilities in stroke survivors with aphasia (SWA).
The goal of this clinical trial is to determine if Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) combined with modified Constraint Induced Language Therapy (mCILT) is an effective treatment for aphasia when delivered in the subacute stage after stroke. The main questions this study aims to answer are: 1. Can TMS combined with mCILT improve overall speech? 2. Can we identify specific behavioral and biological characteristics that would benefit most from the TMS and mCILT treatment? Researchers will compare real TMS to sham (fake) TMS to see whether TMS can treat subacute aphasia. Importantly, this trial will use electric field guided TMS to identify optimal and individualized stimulation intensity and site targeting. Participants will: * Complete a screening and medical intake to determine eligibility * Undergo MRI scans * Participate in 10 consecutive sessions (Monday-Friday) of TMS and mCILT treatment * Complete follow-up assessments immediately and 4 months after treatment
This study is designed for individuals with aphasia, a language disorder that affects many stroke survivors, making it difficult to read, speak, and understand language. Up to 70% of people with aphasia struggle with reading, which impacts their ability to communicate, work, and engage in daily life. The study aims to test a new approach to reading rehabilitation by combining Phono-Motor Treatment (PMT), a language therapy adapted to improve reading, with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a safe and painless brain stimulation technique. tDCS delivers a mild electrical current to the brain, which may enhance learning. This study will assess whether adding tDCS to PMT improves reading therapy outcomes.
The goal of this clinical trial is to determine if Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) combined with Speech-Language Therapy (SLT) is an effective treatment for mild aphasia in persons with chronic stroke. The main questions this study aims to answer are: 1. Can TMS combined with SLT improve conversational speech and comprehension? 2. Can we identify specific behavioral and biological characteristics that would benefit most from the TMS and SLT treatment? Researchers will compare real TMS to sham (fake) TMS to see whether TMS can treat post-stroke mild aphasia. Participants will: * Complete a screening and medical intake to determine eligibility * Undergo a MRI * Participate in 10 consecutive sessions (Monday-Friday) of TMS and SLT treatment * Complete follow-up assessments 2 and 4 months after treatment
The goal of this clinical trial is to test the use of voice personalization through artificial intelligence (AI) voice cloning on speech entrainment tasks to improve language production of persons with aphasia (PWA). The main question the study aims to answer is: - What is the impact of personalized voice on speech entrainment in PWA compared to traditional speech entrainment? Speech entrainment is a technique used by speech-language pathologists to improve the speech production of PWA. Traditionally, speech therapists act as the model for participants to speak along with to improve their speech production. This study proposes the use of one's own voice (digitally altered) to improve speech production. The study uses a mobile health approach to administer speech entrainment treatment through a mobile app. * Smartphones with the mobile app pre-installed will be mailed to participants at no cost. * Participants will complete treatment in the comfort of their homes. * The experimental treatments involve: mirror speech entrainment (speaking along to one's own voice) and traditional speech entrainment (speaking along to someone else's voice).
This study aims to determine the impact of a collaborative approach to training law enforcement officers and first responders about aphasia including their knowledge and confidence in communicating with individuals with aphasia that they may encounter in the field. 75 participants from Madison Police Department will be enrolled and can expect to be on study for up to 6 months.
Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a progressive neurological disorder that causes a gradual decline in communication ability as a result of selective neurodegeneration of speech and language networks in the brain. PPA is a devastating condition affecting adults as young as in their 50's, depriving them of the ability to communicate and function in society. As a result of improved diagnostic precision, PPA is now identified with greater accuracy and frequency and, increasingly, patients and their families seek options for behavioral treatments to ameliorate the devastating effects on their communication, prolong speech language skills, and maximize quality of life. Speech-language treatment outcomes from our group and others are encouraging, confirming that behavioral intervention may lead to improvements in trained behaviors and, for some interventions, lasting and generalized benefit. Most speech-language interventions for individuals with PPA that have been explored in the literature are restitutive, or impairment-based in nature, and have not addressed the full range of severity and phenotypic variability in this population. The investigators will evaluate the utility of a novel, multicomponent intervention that incorporates elements of restitutive (e.g., word finding strategic training, script training), compensatory (e.g., multimodal communication, communication book), and care partner-focused treatment to meet the needs of individuals varying in clinical presentation and severity.
The current study aims to examine the benefits of an education/support group program for individuals with progressive aphasia (caused by various etiologies, diagnoses) and their carepartners. The current study utilizes pre-, post-treatment, and follow-up assessments to measure effects of a psychoeducational support group and an implementation/communication skills training phase on measures of psychosocial function, communicative effectiveness and speech/language function. Analysis of study-specific surveys and semi-structured interviews will provide qualitative data regarding outcomes. Before beginning the education and support group, focus groups will be run in order to set priorities for the themes to be included in the education program. Participants will join via tele-based means if preferred and these participants may reside in the United States, or internationally including Mexico and Spain.
Patients with stroke frequently suffer from aphasia, a disorder of expressive and/or receptive language, that can lead to serious health consequences, including social isolation, depression, reduced quality of life, and increased caregiver burden. Aphasia recovery varies greatly between individuals, and likely relies upon the capacity for neuroplasticity, both at a systems level of reorganized brain networks and a molecular level of neuronal repair and plasticity. The proposed work will evaluate genetic and neural network biological markers of neuroplasticity associated with variability in aphasia, with a future goal to improve prognostics and identify therapeutic targets to reduce the long-term burdens of aphasia.
The goal of this randomized controled trial is to test the effects of assigning people with chronic post-stroke aphasia to 12 weekly choir sessions, compared to usual care. The main question it aims to answer is: Does the assignment to a choir singing program causes a beneficial effect on functional communication and language recovery as well as psychosocial outcomes compared to usual care in the rehabilitation of people with chronic post-stroke aphasia? Participants will have: 12 in-person choir-singing sessions (1 session/week, 1,5 h/session, total 18h) conducted by a choir master, and home singing training (3 x 30-minutes-sessions/week, total 18h)
Aphasia is a disorder of spoken and written language, most commonly following a stroke. It is estimated that between 2.5 and 4 million Americans are living with aphasia today. A common problem in aphasia involves difficulty retrieving known words in the course of language production and comprehension. The overarching goal of this project is to develop and test early efficacy, efficiency, and the tolerability of a lexical treatment for aphasia in multiple-session regimens that are comprised of retrieval practice, distributed practice, and training dedicated to the elicitation of correct retrievals. The aim of this work is to add to and refine the evidence base for the implementation and optimization of these elements in the treatment of production and comprehension deficits in aphasia, and make important steps towards an ultimate goal of self-administered lexical treatment grounded in retrieval practice principles (RPP) to supplement traditional speech-language therapy that is appropriate for People with Aphasia (PWA) from a broad level of severity of lexical processing deficit in naming and/or comprehension. This project cumulatively builds on prior work to develop a theory of learning for lexical processing impairment in aphasia that aims to ultimately explain why and for whom familiar lexical treatments work, and how to maximize the benefits they confer.
The goal of this clinical trial is to establish the feasibility and fidelity of a high-intensity exercise program for individuals with post-stroke aphasia. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Is it feasible for stroke survivors with aphasia to participate in a long in-person physical exercise program? * Does participation in a physical exercise program lead to physical fitness, cognitive, language and/or psychological changes? Participants can take part in two different physical exercise interventions: * Low intensity intervention (control intervention); * High-intensity physical exercise intervention (target intervention).
The primary goal of this clinical trial study is to evaluate the effect of a new therapy to improve talking in people with the language disability 'aphasia' after a stroke. The therapy is called: 'Expanding Communication and Language Generated in Conversation Treatment' (ECoLoGiC Treatment), and helps improve language skills for talking to other people in conversation. The second goal is to develop training materials to teach families of people with aphasia about the therapy and how to practice at home. This part of the study will be completed with help from two people with aphasia and a family member who have completed the program. The study asks: 1. How do people with aphasia improve their language skills following this therapy? Results will be determined by using tests of language and by testing language in conversation and other types of talking tasks, like describing a picture. 2. After completing the family training, do family members use the ideas they learned when talking to the person with aphasia? And, what do family members and people with aphasia think of the family training? The first question will be answered with a checklist to see if the family members followed the ideas they learned. The second question will be answered by talking with the people with aphasia and the family members to find out what they thought. The people with aphasia will complete language testing before and after therapy, and 6 weeks later (to see if improvements are maintained). Therapy is twice a week for one hour, for 10 weeks with a speech-language pathologist. During therapy, the person will have casual conversations with the speech-language pathologist, who will help the person communicate by giving small amounts of help at a time. The speech-language pathologist will tell the person what they are doing that does and does not help with communication. This process helps the person use more language and learn how to communicate better. The family members will have training with the speech-language pathologists to learn about the therapy and how to continue with the ideas at home. Training will take place over 3 sessions, scheduled in addition to therapy sessions. After therapy ends, the family members will have conversations with the person with aphasia, to show what they have learned. Each family member and person with aphasia will also have a 10-20 minute conversation with a researcher to share their thoughts about the training program.
This study will assess the effects of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) on language recovery after stroke.
This study will investigate the effects of mild electrical stimulation in conjunction with speech therapy for people with post-stroke aphasia to enhance language recovery.
Aphasia is a language disorder, commonly resulting from stroke or other brain injury, that impacts a person's ability to communicate. This project is looking to improve upon current treatment methods for spoken naming in people with aphasia. People with aphasia frequently report being able to successfully say a word in their head, regardless of their ability to say the word out loud. For example, when presented with a picture of a house, they may report being able to think or hear "house" in their head, even if they can't name it out loud. This "little voice" inside one's head is known as inner speech (IS). Previous research suggests that some people with aphasia can re-learn to say words with successful IS (i.e., words they can already say in their heads) easier and faster than words with unsuccessful IS. This study will extend these findings by implementing a comparative treatment study in a larger group of participants with aphasia. The results will help to establish recommendations for speech-language pathologists in choosing treatment stimuli for anomia.
This study is recruiting people who had a stroke at least 1 month ago and now have a language impairment called aphasia. Living with aphasia can have devastating effects on communication and quality of life, and it is not uncommon for survivors with aphasia to face psychological problems like depression and anxiety. Participants who are eligible for this study will undergo baseline testing, engage in a 5-week treatment focused on psychological well-being, undergo post-treatment testing, and then testing again 1-month later. Check-in phone calls will be conducted during the 1-month off period and participants will be interviewed about their experience at the end of the study as well. Compensation will be provided to participants with aphasia.
Difficulties with speech and language are the first and most notable symptoms of primary progressive aphasia (PPA). While there is evidence that demonstrates positive effects of speech-language treatment for individuals with PPA who only speak one language (monolinguals), there is a significant need for investigating the effects of treatment that is optimized for bilingual speakers with PPA. This stage 2 efficacy clinical trial seeks to establish the effects of culturally and linguistically tailored speech-language interventions administered to bilingual individuals with PPA. The overall aim of the intervention component of this study is to establish the relationships between the bilingual experience (e.g., how often each language is used, how "strong" each language is) and treatment response of bilinguals with PPA. Specifically, the investigators will evaluate the benefits of tailored speech-language intervention administered in both languages to bilingual individuals with PPA (60 individuals will be recruited). The investigators will conduct an assessment before treatment, after treatment and at two follow-ups (6 and 12-months post-treatment) in both languages. When possible, a structural scan of the brain (magnetic resonance image) will be collected before treatment in order to identify if brain regions implicated in bilingualism are associated with response to treatment. In addition to the intervention described herein, 30 bilingual individuals with PPA will be recruited to complete behavioral cognitive-linguistic testing and will not receive intervention. Results will provide important knowledge about the neural mechanisms of language re-learning and will address how specific characteristics of bilingualism influence cognitive reserve and linguistic resilience in PPA.
This study will evaluate evidence-based treatments for adults with mild Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA). The aim of the study is to help identify efficacious communication and quality of life interventions for those with PPA and their care-partners. Participants with a diagnosis of PPA and their actively-engaged care partners will be involved in the study for 12 months. Each participant will receive a iPad equipped with the necessary applications and features for the study. Participants will complete evaluations, speech therapy sessions with a speech and language therapist, and sessions with a licensed social worker or related clinician. They will have access to Communication Bridge, a personalized web application to practice home exercises that reinforce treatment strategies. There are no costs to participate in this study.
The overall goal of this study is to evaluate whether stimulation of two brain areas alongside behavioral speech-language therapy increases connectivity to improve language functions in stroke-aphasia patients.
Aphasia is a language disorder caused by stroke and other acquired brain injuries that affects over two million people in the United States and which interferes with life participation and quality of life. Anomia (i.e., word- finding difficulty) is a primary frustration for people with aphasia. Picture-based naming treatments for anomia are widely used in aphasia rehabilitation, but current treatment approaches do not address the long-term retention of naming abilities and do not focus on using these naming abilities in daily life. The current research aims to evaluate novel anomia treatment approaches to improve long-term retention and generalization to everyday life. This study is one of two that are part of a larger grant. This record is for sub-study 2, which will evaluate the benefits of adaptive trial spacing.
Aphasia is a language disorder caused by stroke and other acquired brain injuries that affects over two million people in the United States and which interferes with life participation and quality of life. Anomia (i.e., word- finding difficulty) is a primary frustration for people with aphasia. Picture-based naming treatments for anomia are widely used in aphasia rehabilitation, but current treatment approaches do not address the long-term retention of naming abilities and do not focus on using these naming abilities in daily life. The current research aims to evaluate novel anomia treatment approaches to improve long-term retention and generalization to everyday life. This study is one of two that are part of a larger grant. This record is for sub-study 1, which will adaptively balance effort and accuracy using speeded naming deadlines.
The long-term goal of this work is to determine if combining a highly intensive, task-specific behavioral language intervention with modulation of the efferent cerebellar-cortical pathway using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has a positive influence on discourse, verbal fluency and working memory in individuals with non-fluent aphasia after stroke. And if these changes can be related to neuroplastic change in the cerebellar cortical pathway indirectly measured through neurophysiologic changes using spectral electroencephalogram (EEG). The initial phase includes the proposed pilot study data from which will be used to inform a larger clinical trial. The primary aims of this pilot are to 1) determine the effect of combining cerebellar tDCS with constraint-induced language therapy (CILT) on language as measured by a verbal fluency task and discourse task in a small population and 2) identify the tolerance of the intervention and barriers to participation measured by the adverse events questionnaire that will inform the methodology of a larger study. The secondary aims include estimating the size of the treatment effect on 1) delta percentage in F3, F7 and Fp1 compared to F4, F8, and Fp2 using resting state EEG spectral analysis and coherence, 2) working memory as measured by the score on the n-back test and 3) quality of life as measured by the Stroke Aphasia Quality of Life survey tool. The secondary aims will be used to determine the utility of these measures in a larger clinical trial. This is a prospective, crossover study, sham-controlled intervention study with two intervention conditions delivered across 6 intervention sessions (3x/week for two weeks) with a 4-week washout in between. Conditions include: 1) sham cerebellar tDCS and 2) real cerebellar tDCS delivered at 2mA across 20 minutes. Each of these will be delivered during CILT intervention with a licensed, certified speech-language pathologist trained in CILT. Once tDCS stimulation has ended, CILT will continue to be delivered for an additional 25 minutes. Assessments of discourse, verbal fluency, working memory and EEG spectral analysis will be conducted at four timepoints, before and after each intervention phase.
This study focuses on developing a novel treatment for sentence production and comprehension in aphasia, using implicit priming. First set of experiments will aim examine which priming conditions are most effective in creating maximal learning effects. Then, in a later experiment, the investigators will develop and test the efficacy of a novel treatment study based on findings from the first set of the experiments.
People with post-stroke aphasia (PWA) suffer from anomia, a condition where they know what they want to say but cannot retrieve the words. For PWA, word retrieval changes moment-to-moment, leading to diminished motivation to participate in conversations and disengagement from social interactions. In the real world, anomia variability and severity are compounded by contextual factors of communication exchanges (noise, dual-tasking). Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) involves in-situ measurement of a behavior over time during everyday life. EMA has promise for capturing real-world anomia, yet EMA methods have not been tested in PWA. Therefore, the aims of this pilot study are to (1) determine the relative feasibility of two types of smartwatch-delivered EMA (traditional-EMA and micro-EMA) in PWA and (2) determine the extent to which patient-specific factors relate to feasibility. Twenty PWA will be recruited and randomly assigned to either traditional-EMA or micro-EMA conditions. To target in-situ anomia, PWA will complete 36 picture-naming trials/day for three weeks, delivered either as a single trial 36 times per day (micro-EMA) or in four sets of nine trials/set per day (traditional-EMA). Due to the "at-a-glance" single trial delivery of micro-EMA, the investigators hypothesize that PWA in the micro-EMA condition will demonstrate better protocol adherence than PWA in the traditional-EMA condition. Older age, more severe cognitive-linguistic deficits, and greater discomfort with technology will be related to poorer compliance, lower completion, greater perceived burden, and lower intelligibility of naming audio recordings. This bench-to-bedside research will begin a translational path to implement EMA/micro-EMA into routine assessment of aphasia.
This study incorporates metacognitive strategy training into semantic feature analysis treatment. Semantic feature analysis treatment has a strong evidence base and capacity to improve word retrieval by encouraging circumlocution. Circumlocution facilitates self-cued naming and assists listener comprehension when naming fails. However, semantic feature analysis treatment does not include direct techniques to teach patients with aphasia to generalize the use of semantic feature analysis treatment's circumlocution procedure. Therefore, this study proposes that combining semantic feature analysis treatment and metacognitive strategy training will stimulate the semantic system and increase patients with aphasias' use of circumlocution across divergent contexts. This study aims to measure the treatment's effect on naming accuracy for trained and untrained items. The study also aim to measure the treatment's effect on people with aphasias' knowledge of the strategy components and changes in verbalizations during retrieval attempts. The central hypothesis is that strategy training will increase patients with aphasias' explicit knowledge about circumlocution and enable them to use it to (1) self-facilitate naming, and (2) produce more informative connected speech.
Speaking in unison with another person is included as a part of many treatment approaches for aphasia. It is not well understood why and how this technique works. One goal of this study is to determine who benefits from speaking in unison, and what characteristics of speech are most helpful. Another goal is to investigate a possible mechanism for this benefit: why does speaking in unison help? A possible mechanism for this benefit is examined, by testing whether the degree of alignment of a person's speech with that of another speaker can account for unison benefit.
Aphasia, or language impairment after a stroke, affects approximately 2 million people in the United States, with an estimated 180,000 new cases each year. The medical community cannot predict how well someone with aphasia will respond to treatment, as some people with aphasia are poor responders to intervention even when participating in empirically supported treatments. There is a strong likelihood that genetics play a role in language recovery after stroke, but very little research has been dedicated to investigating this link. This study will investigate whether two genes and cognitive abilities, such as memory, predict responsiveness to aphasia therapy for word-retrieval difficulties.
Aphasia is an impairment in the expression or comprehension of language that results from stroke, traumatic brain injury or progressive neurological disease. Approximately two million people in the United States suffer from aphasia, which has profound impacts on quality of life, the ability to return to work and participation in life activities. Research has shown that speech-language therapy, the treatment for aphasia, can significantly improve people's ability to communicate. However, a major limitation in the field of aphasia rehabilitation is the lack of predictability in patients' response to therapy and the inability to tailor treatment to individuals. Currently, aphasia treatments are selected largely based on patient's language abilities and language deficits with little consideration of learning ability, which this study refers to as learning phenotype. Learning phenotype has been used to inform rehabilitation approaches in other domains but is not currently considered in aphasia. The overarching hypothesis of this work is that poor alignment of learning ability and language therapy limits progress for patients and presents a barrier to individualizing treatment. The objectives of the proposed study are to (1) determine the learning phenotype of individuals with aphasia, and (2) examine how lesion characteristics (size and location of damage to the brain), language ability and cognitive ability relate to learning ability. To accomplish objectives, investigators propose to measure implicit (observational) and explicit (rule-based) learning ability in people with aphasia via computer-based tasks. Regression models will be used to examine brain and behavioral factors that relate to learning ability.