JOHNSON CITY – The Speech-Language and Hearing Clinic at East Tennessee State University is testing a new treatment approach designed for patients recovering from a stroke.
ETSU researcher Dr. Lee Ennis says one of the most devastating effects of a stroke is a language disorder known as aphasia that interferes with the person's ability to speak, read, write, and understand what is spoken to them.
“Patients with impaired communication following a stroke often experience feelings of isolation or depression because they have difficulty connecting with other people,” said Ennis, an assistant professor of communicative disorders at ETSU. “For example, many have trouble ordering at a restaurant, conversing during business transactions, or participating in social activities.”
According to Ennis, speech-language pathologists will employ different types of “cues” during treatment to help patients retrieve a word they are having difficulty recalling. Two of the most commonly used approaches involve “semantic cues” and “phonological cues.”
With semantic cues, speech-language pathologists will give the patient a description of the target word and list words that are often associated with it, such as “ball” and “bat.”
Phonological cues, on the other hand, involve the use of sounds. For example, if the patient has trouble saying “feather,” the therapist will help by pronouncing the first syllable of the word or by using a rhyming word like “leather.”
Though both are helpful, previous research conducted by Ennis suggests that the semantic cues approach may be more effective in treating some word retrieval problems associated with aphasia.
In the current study, Ennis will be testing a new technique that she describes as a combination of the phonological and semantic approaches.
“Our goal is to determine if a combined method is more successful as opposed to one individual approach,” Ennis explained. “In addition, we hope that further testing will better differentiate semantic and phonological word-finding problems and identify treatments that are more effective for them. This knowledge may help speech-language pathologists better understand which therapeutic approach should be prescribed.”
Men and women over the age of 18 who have suffered a stroke within the past seven years may be eligible to participate in the study. Those who enroll will receive treatment two times each week at no charge. Services will be provided at the Aphasia Research Clinic, located at the ETSU Nave Center in Elizabethton.
For more information about the study, contact Ennis at (423) 439-4534.