New Research: Language Training Promotes Cognitive Function in Stroke Sufferers
About 150,000 people in Britain have a stroke every year, and while the stroke-related mortality rate has fallen for the past years, many sufferers are left with serious physical impairments, such as aphasia. This condition targets the area in the brain that controls language, which makes it hard for a person to speak, write, and communicate.
In her ground-breaking study, Cynthia Thompson, a renowned researcher on stroke and brain damage, found that behaviour treatment that focuses on improving language problems in stroke sufferers do not only improve their ability to communicate, but also enhances their cognitive function.
For the past years, Thompson has been studying the nature, causes and potential therapy for agrammatic aphasia. People with this condition have difficulty producing sentences and observing correct grammatical structure. While some people recover from aphasia without the need for treatment, many have to undergo language therapy as soon as possible. And even though multiple forms of treatment are available to address aphasia caused by stroke, there are only a few that were clinically proven to work in efficacy.
"Not long ago, the conventional wisdom was that people only could recover language within three months to a year after the onset of stroke," she says. "Today we know that, with appropriate training, patients can make gains as much as 10 years or more after a stroke," says Thompson, who spent 30 years studying the concept of brain plasticity. According to her, the brain has the ability to change and develop.
In her current study, Thompson found that engaging in language activities result to shifts in neural activity in both cerebral hemispheres associated with recovery in the undamaged areas of the brain. Language training, points out Thompson, stimulates the recovery of neural networks that promote the development of a person’s language skills.
In future studies, Thompson will explore the role of blood flow in alleviating language problems in patients who suffered from chronic stroke. In previous studies, she found that stroke also results to disrupted blood flow in certain regions of the brain. She will also facilitate a research that involves the use of eye-tracking techniques to understand the nature of language deficits in acquired aphasia.
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