Simulated in-home teletreatment for anomia

Area of Science:

• Neurology
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Telemedicine

Background:

• Post-stroke anomia, a language disorder affecting word retrieval, presents challenges for traditional in-person therapy.
• Exploring remote treatment options is crucial for improving accessibility and adherence for neurological patients.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the feasibility and efficacy of in-home teletreatment for post-stroke anomia.
• To evaluate patient satisfaction with remote speech therapy interventions.

Main Methods:

• A pilot pre/post-intervention case study involving three participants over 65 with post-stroke anomia.
• 12 speech therapy teletreatments focused on confrontation naming skills over 6 weeks.
• Comparison of trained stimuli (Block A) versus untrained stimuli (Block B) to measure treatment efficacy.

Main Results:

• All participants demonstrated clinically significant improvements in naming trained items.
• Less improvement was observed in naming untrained items, indicating treatment specificity.
• High satisfaction scores (above 57/60) were reported by participants using a French adaptation of the Telemedicine satisfaction questionnaire.

Conclusions:

• In-home teletreatment is a feasible approach for delivering speech therapy to patients with post-stroke anomia.
• Remote speech therapy can effectively improve confrontation naming skills in this population.
• Teletreatment offers a promising avenue for managing neurological language disorders, enhancing patient access and satisfaction.