Clinical trial NCT05793879: Virtual Reality Training for Aphasia Rehabilitation
Official title: Anomias Rehabilitation Training Through 360° Videos
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Anomic Aphasia
Keywords: virtual reality
embodied cognition
rehabilitation
Lead sponsor: Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Fondazione Poliambulanza
First posted: 2023-03-31
Enrollment: 40
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 80
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: Aphasia is an acquired deficit following acute damage to the central nervous system that involves the difficulty or impossibility of understanding and formulating language. A typical disorder of non-fluent forms of aphasia is anomia. Anomia refers to the difficulty in finding words, in particular when trying to name objects and actions. According to the Embodied Cognition approach (EC), language is tightly connected to the motor system. In this view, language rehabilitation programs should stimulate language through the activation of the motor system. In this approach, since anomic deficits are often due to a weak link between the meaning of the word and its lemma, the Hebbs' principles of coincident and correlated learning can be exploited, i.e., by intensifying the synchronous activation of lexicon and semantics and connecting them with the motor counterpart. In this study, the investigators present an innovative training, based on the EC framework, in which they will make use of new technologies for anomia rehabilitation in post-stroke patients. Specifically, the researchers will use immersive 360° videos representing everyday actions displayed from the first-person point of view, experienced through a head-mounted display. The training will be administered 3 times a week for 4 weeks. The control group will watch standard videos representing the same actions recorded from the third-person perspective. Naming abilities will be tested before and after the training together with other cognitive and psychological measures. The investigators expect that the group who will undergo the 360° video-based training will show greater improvement of performance compared to the control group.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* naming disorder in the post-acute phase (index event occurring at least 6 months earlier)
* to have already received rehabilitation treatment in the acute phase
* noun naming below cut-off
* verbs naming below cut- off

Exclusion Criteria:

* concomitant or pre-existing (with respect to the index event) neurological and psychiatric deficits
* epilepsy
* balance disorders
* neglect

Primary outcomes:
measure: Number of verbs and objects correctly named
timeFrame: post treatment, 1 month
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Batteria per l'Analisi dei Deficit Afasici (BADA), naming subtest
timeFrame: post treatment, 1 month
measure: EuroQol Health-related quality of life (EQ-5D-3L)
timeFrame: post treatment, 1 month
measure: Functional Outcome Questionnaire (FOQ-A)
timeFrame: post treatment, 1 month
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Brescia
country: Italy
facility: Poliambulanza
Study officials:
affiliation: Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
name: Claudia Repetto, Prof
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: