POSITIVE IMPACT OF SPEECH THERAPY IN PROGRESSIVE NON-FLUENT APHASIA

POSITIVE IMPACT OF SPEECH THERAPY IN PROGRESSIVE NON-FLUENT APHASIA

18 (2) 101-114, 2015 | Paola Andrade-Calderón*,1,2, Judith Salvador-Cruz1, Ana Luisa Sosa-Ortiz**2
This study examines the effects of intensive speech therapy on a case of progressive non-fluent aphasia (PNFA), a dementia syndrome characterized by progressive deficits in expressive language fluency, syntactic analysis, agrammatism, and phonemic paraphasias. The patient, an 84-year-old male, received weekly speech therapy for 12 months to stimulate phonological, lexical, and syntactic processing. Neuropsychological assessments were conducted at three stages: six months before therapy, six months after therapy began, and after completing 12 months of intervention. The results showed slight improvements in prosody, fluency, and content of spontaneous speech, as well as significant improvements in repetition, reading aloud, and oral-phonatory praxis. Other cognitive aspects (orientation, verbal naming, praxis, and memory) remained stable, while activities of daily living (ADLs) and quality of life (QOL) improved. The study concludes that prolonged speech therapy can improve language processing and have a positive impact on other cognitive and socio-emotional processes in PNFA, slowing cognitive decline and maintaining or improving symptoms.This study examines the effects of intensive speech therapy on a case of progressive non-fluent aphasia (PNFA), a dementia syndrome characterized by progressive deficits in expressive language fluency, syntactic analysis, agrammatism, and phonemic paraphasias. The patient, an 84-year-old male, received weekly speech therapy for 12 months to stimulate phonological, lexical, and syntactic processing. Neuropsychological assessments were conducted at three stages: six months before therapy, six months after therapy began, and after completing 12 months of intervention. The results showed slight improvements in prosody, fluency, and content of spontaneous speech, as well as significant improvements in repetition, reading aloud, and oral-phonatory praxis. Other cognitive aspects (orientation, verbal naming, praxis, and memory) remained stable, while activities of daily living (ADLs) and quality of life (QOL) improved. The study concludes that prolonged speech therapy can improve language processing and have a positive impact on other cognitive and socio-emotional processes in PNFA, slowing cognitive decline and maintaining or improving symptoms.
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