Search

Purpose: The absence of culture- and language-specific aphasia assessment in Bangla underscores a critical problem in communication sciences and disorders. Aphasia occurs in ~41% of Bangla-speaking stroke survivors. In the past 40 years, stroke incidence has doubled in low- and middle-income countries, such as Bangladesh and India, where there are ~250 million native Bangla speakers. This study aims to initiate the first step toward identifying an appropriate picture stimulus for the Bangla picture description task (PDT) intended for inclusion in a Bangla aphasia assessment. Researchers have reported the importance of cultural relevance and three visuographic variables of a picture (high-context, color, and photograph vs. black-and-white line drawing) for faster comprehension and comprehensive language production in people with aphasia and neurologically healthy adults. Method: Ninety-six neurologically healthy native Bangla speakers of three age groups (young 19–30, middle age 40–55, and older 65–89 years) were recruited to compare spontaneous language production for four selected culturally related and nonrelated picture stimuli with and without the three visuographic variables. Five linguistic variables were used to analyze the language samples. Results: The results demonstrated a significant (a) picture type effect for moving-average type–token ratio, words per minute (WPM), and mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLU) and (b) age group effect for WPM, MLU, and complexity index. Conclusions: This study suggests that a culturally related high-context color photograph is the optimal choice for the Bangla PDT. This study also indicates reduced fluency, grammatical complexity, and syntactic complexity in healthy Bangla-speaking adults aged 65 years and above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The objective of this study was to explore receptiveness of people with poststroke aphasia to receiving transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), including preferences for the treatment setting and schedule of tDCS delivery. Method: An online survey was distributed via e-mail, flyers, social media, and online newsletters to reach people with aphasia. Fisher's exact test examined the relationship of self-reported tDCS receptiveness to demographic, clinical, and other factors. Results: Fifty-seven surveys were returned, and 50 complete surveys were analyzed. Twenty-eight percent of respondents had previously heard of tDCS. Sixty-six percent reported they would receive tDCS if it could help their aphasia, and only 6% reported that they definitely would not. There were statistically significant relationships between being receptive to tDCS and (a) not currently working, (b) being receptive to speech-language therapy, and (c) greater acceptance of potential temporary risks associated with tDCS. Most individuals (73%) who would consider tDCS were equivalently open to receiving it in the clinic or at home, yet the majority (64%) were open to more frequent sessions at home than in the clinic. Most respondents indicated that they would consider having tDCS "forever if it helped" (clinic: 51%; home: 68%). Conclusions: This is the first study to query individuals with aphasia about their receptiveness to tDCS outside the context of an intervention study. Responses suggest that a large majority of people with poststroke aphasia might be open to receiving tDCS if it can ameliorate their aphasia. Limitations include the small sample size, which does not adequately represent the broader population of people with aphasia, and that the survey did not provide the level of tDCS education crucial to inform shared decision making and person-centered care. However, future work may benefit from considering the practical implications of research designs (e.g., high intensity treatment outside the home) that may not, in application, be widely acceptable to primary stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]