Effect of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) on Lexical Retrieval in Aphasia
Condition: Aphasia
MeSH terms: Aphasia
Study type: Interventional
Phase: Phase 2

Summary: 
      The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment
      (VNeST) on the ability to produce sentences and connected speech in persons with aphasia.
    

Detailed description: 
      Stroke is the leading cause of disability in the United States today, and aphasia, a language
      disorder that affects production and comprehension of language, remains one of the most
      devastating aspects of stroke recovery. The most prominent symptom of aphasia is difficulty
      retrieving words, especially in sentence production and connected speech (e.g., telling a
      story, having a conversation). The current project examines the effect Verb Network
      Strengthening Treatment (VNeST), a language therapy, on the ability of persons with moderate
      aphasia to retrieve words in sentences and connected speech. The primary goals of VNeST are
      to 1) increase the specificity of nouns and verbs in sentences, 2) maximize improvement to
      untrained words across a variety of language tasks, and 3) engage and challenge participants
      with salient and relevant treatment materials and activities. Persons with aphasia who are
      enrolled in the study will receive VNeST for 10 weeks for 4 hours per week. Treatment tasks
      involve the retrieval of nouns related to a target verb. For example, for the verb measure,
      participants would come up with people who measure and what they measure (e.g.,
      carpenter/lumber, chef/sugar). They would then answer questions related to why, where, and
      when these things might occur (e.g., for carpenter/measure, they might say "to get the right
      length of board," (why) "at a construction site," (where) and "when building a house"
      (where)). Cues and assistance are provided to the participants when they are unable to
      complete any given task. As the participants improve, cues are reduced.

      Prior to treatment, testing will be conducted on participants to establish their abilities to
      retrieve words in the following contexts: 1) naming pictures of objects and actions, 2)
      sentences, and 3) connected speech.

      Participants and a family member or friend (i.e., proxy) will also complete a questionnaire
      about how the participant is able to communicate in everyday tasks (e.g., indicating yes or
      no, providing medical information).

      During the treatment phase, sentence production abilities on items related to treatment will
      be examined in order to determine how word retrieval abilities are changing with treatment.
      After the completion of treatment, all measures examined prior to treatment (including the
      questionnaire) will be re-examined in order to determine whether improvement was observed.
      Additionally, participants will complete testing one more time 3 months after the completion
      of treatment to determine if post-treatment improvements were maintained.

      Finally, an analysis of improvement over time across the treatment phase will be examined in
      order to determine the rate of improvement (or lack of it) over time. All statistical
      analyses will use group data (i.e., group design), but additional examination of improvements
      for each participant (i.e., single subject design) will also be conducted. Thus, the overall
      experimental design is a mix of group and single subject analyses. The findings from this
      study will help to inform aphasia treatment practices and potentially allow for a larger
      study with more participants in a clinical trial.
    

Intervention name(s): Verb Network Strengthening Treatment
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Treatment to improve word retrieval in sentences and discourse for persons with aphasia due to stroke.
Other intervention name(s): aphasia treatment, anomia, sentence production, discourse
Intervention model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Treatment
Keywords: Aphasia; therapy; treatment; verbs; sentences