An overview of the digital solutions for helping people with aphasia through bibliometric analysis

This paper gives insights into recent research developments in the field of digital solutions for people with aphasia and tries to analyse its impact on their rehabilitation. A bibliometric research approach is used for data collection. Relevant studies were extracted from seven major academic databases from years 2000 to 2019 inclusive. The systematic process resulted in 986 studies. The average growth in this field is 4%, which is less compared to other research areas. However, the average citations per paper is 7.27, which represents a medium level of publication quality. Scopus and Web of Science are leading databases for the number of studies (379 and 264) and quality of publications (P-Index: 49.26 and 32.85), respectively. The USA, with 42% of publications, leads this research field, followed by the UK with 15%. Both countries have national aphasia strategies in place through charities (not government level strategies), which potentially contributed to their research leadership. The results show that recent advances in digital solutions have the potential to support people with aphasia. However, further work is needed at both academic and government levels to deliver more research contributions and funding for the rehabilitation of people with aphasia.