About this trial
62 patients who are one year post stroke and have Aphasia as a result of that stroke will be recruited. Participants will have 4 assessment sessions and 15 treatment sessions. The TDCS will be to right Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) (25 active, 25 sham) for 15 days. A combined semantic feature analysis/phonological components analysis treatment will be paired with the stimulation. Two assessment sessions will be pretreatment, 1 session immediately post-treatment, and 1 session at 3 months follow-up.
Eligibility criteria
This trial does not accept healthy volunteersQualifiers
aged 25-85
must be greater than 6 months post-stroke
must have a diagnosis of aphasia based on impaired performance on the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised, Boston Naming Test, or during discourse production
must be left-hemisphere dominant as demonstrated by aphasia onset subsequent to left hemisphere damage
Disqualifiers
comorbid neurological disease.
damage to the anterior right hemisphere.
significant mood disorder.
substance/alcohol dependence or abuse within the past year
Trial design
Parallel
Treatments tested in this trial
Active Comparator: Experimental: Active cathodal tDCS + language training
DeviceCathodal tDCS raises neuronal membrane potentials, leading to decreased probability of depolarization from incoming stimuli. Speech and Language training involves a combined semantic feature analysis and phonological components analysis treatment.
Sham Comparator: Placebo cathodal tDCS + Speech and language
BehavioralSpeech and Language training involves a combined semantic feature analysis and phonological components analysis treatment. .
Treatment groups
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
Picture Naming of trained items
Change in naming of pictures of trained items; 60 pictured items; higher score indicates improvement
Naming Response Time of trained items Scales - IV (WAIS-IV; Wechsler, Coalson, & Railford, 2008)
Change in response time of naming of pictures of trained items; 0-20 seconds, decreased response time indicates improvement Scales - IV (WAIS-IV; Wechsler, Coalson, \& Railford, 2008)
Naming Efficiency of trained items
Change in efficiency of naming of pictures of trained items; median response time divided by proportion correct naming; smaller numbers indicate greater efficiency
Secondary outcomes
Discourse informativeness - Main Concept Production
Change in discourse informativeness as measured by main concept scores; increased values indicate improvement
Efficiency of discourse informativeness - Main Concept Production
Change in efficiency of discourse informativeness; accurate and complete main concepts produced over the time of discourse elicitation (ACs/min); larger numbers indicate greater efficiency
Picture Naming of untrained items - Boston Naming Test
Change in naming of pictures of untrained items; 60 pictured items; higher score indicates improvement
Naming Response Time of untrained items - Boston Naming Test
Change in response time of naming of pictures of untrained items; 0-20 seconds, decreased response time indicates improvement
Sponsors and contacts
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University of New Mexico
Lead sponsor
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Collaborator
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Collaborator
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Collaborator