Assessing Self-Reported Mood in Aphasia Following Stroke: Challenges, Innovations and Future Directions.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Rehabilitation Medicine

Background:

• Mood assessment is vital for rehabilitation outcomes after stroke and acquired brain injury.
• Aphasia, a common consequence, impairs language-based mood assessment.
• Existing methods often exclude individuals with aphasia due to communication barriers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the challenges of self-reported mood assessment in stroke patients with aphasia.
• To evaluate existing adapted mood assessment instruments.
• To highlight the utility of non-verbal assessment tools for this population.

Main Methods:

• Critical review of neuropsychological aspects of self-reported mood.
• Evaluation of adapted self-report measures for mood assessment.
• Focus on the Dynamic Visual Analog Mood Scales (D-VAMS) and its non-verbal interface.

Main Results:

• Aphasia presents significant challenges for traditional mood assessment in stroke survivors.
• Adapted scales, particularly the tablet-based D-VAMS, show promise for non-verbal mood evaluation.
• The D-VAMS utilizes modulated facial expressions and slider controls for subjective quantification.

Conclusions:

• Adapted mood assessment tools are crucial for including aphasic individuals in rehabilitation studies.
• The D-VAMS represents a significant advancement in assessing mood in populations with language impairments.
• Non-verbal assessment methods have broader applications in communication and subjective phenomena quantification.