Are brief batteries able to identify aphasia in elderly people? A study with the ABLA Battery

This study aimed to evaluate the performance of healthy elderly individuals and elderly individuals with post-stroke aphasia using the ABLA Battery - Brief Assessment of Language and Aphasias in order to verify if this brief battery is able to identify and characterize linguistic deficits in elderly individuals as well as to assess the effectiveness of this tool as a screening for aphasia.

Sixteen neurologically healthy elderly individuals (Control Group- CG) and sixteen elderly persons with aphasia (Clinical Group EPWA) were assessed using the ABLA Battery. Data analysis was conducted using the Mann-Whitney U Test to compare performance on linguistic tasks between the two groups.

The Clinical Group scored significantly lower on all tasks of the ABLA Battery compared to the Control Group, with statistically significant differences (p<0.05).

Aphasia negatively impacts the linguistic abilities of older adults, and the ABLA Battery was shown to be effective in promptly identifying these early changes.