Clinical trial NCT04318951: Impact of Intensive Social Interaction on Post-Stroke Depression in Individuals With Aphasia
Official title: Impact of Intensive Social Interaction on Post-Stroke Depression in Individuals With Aphasia
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Post-stroke Depression
Post-stroke Aphasia
Lead sponsor: University Medicine Greifswald
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2020-03-24
Enrollment: 60
Sex: ALL
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: The present parallel-group, single-center, blinded-assessment controlled trial seeks to explore the feasibility - in terms of high completion rates - and potential efficacy of intensive communicative-pragmatic social interaction for treatment of post stroke depression in subacute aphasia. Apart from evidence of treatment feasibility, the primary hypothesis predicts significantly greater progress on self-report and clinician-rated measures of depression severity after (i) intensive communicative-pragmatic social interaction combined with standard care, compared to (ii) standard care alone.

Detailed description: Background. Individuals with post-stroke aphasia often experience a profound loss of abilities to engage in social interaction, one major reason for increased risk of depression after a cerebrovascular accident. Impaired communication skills in aphasia can prevent classical forms of psychotherapy, thus emphasizing the need for new rehabilitation strategies alongside antidepressant medication.

Aims. The present parallel-group, single-center, blinded-assessment controlled trial seeks to explore the feasibility - in terms of high completion rates (primary outcome) - and potential efficacy (co-primary and secondary outcomes, as defined below) of intensive communicative-pragmatic social interaction for treatment of post-stroke depression in subacute aphasia. In this early time window after a cerebrovascular accident, prevalence of post-stroke depression is generally high.

Methods. Treatment is based on a linguistically validated protocol that encourages individuals with aphasia to use neural resources of verbal communication embedded in intensive social interaction. In a routine-healthcare outpatient setting, 60 individuals with post-stroke depression and subacute aphasia will be assigned to one of two groups in a pseudorandomized fashion: (i) intensive communicative-pragmatic social interaction combined with standard care, or (ii) standard care alone.

Endpoints and Outcomes. Apart from evidence of treatment feasibility, endpoint will be change on self-report and clinician-rated measures of depression severity (co-primary outcomes: Beck's Depression Inventory, BDI; and Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, HAM-D) after a 1-month treatment period (5 hours of weekly training). Secondary outcomes include measures evaluating self-efficacy, quality of life, and language performance (secondary outcomes: Self-Efficacy Questionnaire; and Aachen Aphasia Test, AAT).

Hypotheses. Aside from evidence of treatment feasibility, the primary hypothesis predicts significant between-group differences on BDI and HAM-D scores, indicating greater reduction in depression severity with intensive communicative-pragmatic social interaction over and above standard care alone. Secondary analyses will focus on the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire as an external criterion to explore the psychometric adequacy of the self-report co-primary outcome, the BDI, and consider progress in language performance from onset to end of treatment on the AAT to account for the potential relationship between change in cognitive-affective distress and verbal expression skills.

Clinical Relevance. The current proof-of-concept trial will investigate the feasibility and potential efficacy of intensive communicative-pragmatic social interaction as a means to promote recovery from post-stroke depression in subacute aphasia. The results obtained will determine the design of a subsequent phase-III randomized controlled trial.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Left-hemisphere cortical or subcortical stroke;
* Native speaker of German;
* Right-handedness according to the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (Oldfield, 1971);
* Diagnosis of post-stroke depression, as defined in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11);
* Diagnosis of aphasia, as confirmed by standardized tests (e.g., Huber et al., 1984); and
* Late subacute or consolidation phase (i.e., 0.5-6 months following stroke) where risk of post-stroke depression is particularly high (Shi et al., 2014).

Exclusion Criteria:

* Other neurological conditions;
* Pre-morbid history of depression;
* Other psychopathological conditions;
* Severely impaired vision or hearing that may prevent participants from engaging in intensive communicative-pragmatic social interaction during therapy or testing, thus adopting routine-healthcare standards from a large-scale phase-III randomized controlled trial (Breitenstein et al., 2017);
* Serious non-verbal cognitive deficits; and
* No informed consent.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in Beck's Depression Inventory, BDI.
timeFrame: Change from 1 day before start of treatment until immediately after 4 weeks of treatment.
measure: Change in Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, HAM-D. Higher Values Represent Higher Degree of Depression.
timeFrame: Change from 1 day before start of treatment until immediately after 4 weeks of treatment.
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Self-Efficacy Questionnaire.
timeFrame: Immediately after 4 weeks of treatment (used only as an external criterion to explore the psychometric adequacy of the self-report co-primary outcome, the BDI)
Other outcomes:
measure: Change in Aachen Aphasia Test, AAT.
timeFrame: Change from 1 day before start of treatment until immediately after 4 weeks of treatment.
Locations:
city: Berlin
country: Germany
facility: MEDIAN-Klinik Berlin-Kladow
Study officials:
affiliation: University Medicine of Greifswald & Medical School Berlin
name: Benjamin Stahl, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: University Medicine of Greifswald
name: Agnes Flöel, MD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Stahl B, Van Lancker Sidtis D. Tapping into neural resources of communication: formulaic language in aphasia therapy. Front Psychol. 2015 Oct 20;6:1526. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01526. eCollection 2015. No abstract available.
citation: Stahl B, Mohr B, Dreyer FR, Lucchese G, Pulvermuller F. Using language for social interaction: Communication mechanisms promote recovery from chronic non-fluent aphasia. Cortex. 2016 Dec;85:90-99. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2016.09.021. Epub 2016 Oct 15.
citation: Stahl B, Mohr B, Buscher V, Dreyer FR, Lucchese G, Pulvermuller F. Efficacy of intensive aphasia therapy in patients with chronic stroke: a randomised controlled trial. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2018 Jun;89(6):586-592. doi: 10.1136/jnnp-2017-315962. Epub 2017 Dec 22.
citation: Breitenstein C, Grewe T, Floel A, Ziegler W, Springer L, Martus P, Huber W, Willmes K, Ringelstein EB, Haeusler KG, Abel S, Glindemann R, Domahs F, Regenbrecht F, Schlenck KJ, Thomas M, Obrig H, de Langen E, Rocker R, Wigbers F, Ruhmkorf C, Hempen I, List J, Baumgaertner A; FCET2EC study group. Intensive speech and language therapy in patients with chronic aphasia after stroke: a randomised, open-label, blinded-endpoint, controlled trial in a health-care setting. Lancet. 2017 Apr 15;389(10078):1528-1538. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30067-3. Epub 2017 Mar 1.
citation: Huber W, Poeck K, Willmes K. The Aachen Aphasia Test. Adv Neurol. 1984;42:291-303. No abstract available.
citation: Oldfield RC. The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia. 1971 Mar;9(1):97-113. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(71)90067-4. No abstract available.
citation: Shi YZ, Xiang YT, Wu SL, Zhang N, Zhou J, Bai Y, Wang S, Wang YL, Zhao XQ, Ungvari GS, Chiu HF, Wang YJ, Wang CX. The relationship between frontal lobe lesions, course of post-stroke depression, and 1-year prognosis in patients with first-ever ischemic stroke. PLoS One. 2014 Jul 8;9(7):e100456. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0100456. eCollection 2014.
citation: Stahl B, Millrose S, Denzler P, Lucchese G, Jacobi F, Floel A. Intensive Social Interaction for Treatment of Poststroke Depression in Subacute Aphasia: The CONNECT Trial. Stroke. 2022 Dec;53(12):3530-3537. doi: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.122.039995. Epub 2022 Sep 20.