The theme of this thesis is development of multimedia mobile applications. Specifically, applications in the field of rehabilitation and re-education of patients suffering from aphasia. The aim of this thesis is to determine the application parameters, which in practice could be used by people, who suffer from aphasia and all those who assist them in therapy To this end, was developed the first version of Aphasia vocabulary. By the medium of Aphasia vocabulary was then conducted research survey at pacients with aphasia. The research assesses the suitability of various multimedia applications and controls aphasic dictionary while working with a speech therapist with the patient. It is a qualitative research based on the method of interviewing and participant observation at a standard therapeutic practice. The result of the research is a set of recommendations for the development of mobile applications for people with aphasia. Conclusions are useful in the creation of rehabilitation and re-education materials.

The theme of the thesis is the development of the appliacation Aphasia dictionary 2.0. Aphasic Dictionary 1.0 is an application that our project team has developed in terms of side specialization. It is a logopaedic therapeutic tool for patients with aphasia which contains entries in the dictionary with the visuals accompanied by a soundtrack. This device helps make the therapy with expert more attractive and it allows home training for the pacients. Now the team plans to develop a second version which should be comprehensive and professional manner. The aim of the thesis is to prepare the data for this project. Specifically I am going to carry out research among users analyse the changes compared to the first vision and put together a project plan.

The diploma thesis focuses on the elaboration of proposals for materials for clients of the Aphasia Club, which were used in group therapy. The diploma thesis is divided into theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part contains three main chapters, in which the concept of aphasia is defined, the symptomatology and etiology of this imaired communication ability are described. Then are listed possible classifications of aphasia, available tests for diagnosis and directions in the therapy of aphasia. The practical parts sets the main goal of the thesis, together with three research questions. As research methods were chosen case studies, which were prepared on the basis of medical reports of individual clients of the Aphasia Club. With information of medical reports were created materials for group therapies of Aphasia Club. The materials were used in group therapies. Using method of observation, research questions focused on the use of materials, their modification and practical signifikance in the development of impaired communication functions were subsequently answered.

No description available.

Teaching conversational strategies has been effective for a wide array of clients with acquired neurologic disorders and their caregivers. Research indicates positive results for Supported Conversation in adults with Aphasia (SCA) secondary to stroke. Applying this method to work with caregivers of persons with memory impairment could prove to be a valid intervention tool. This investigation will examine the applicability of SCA with persons with memory impairment and their familial caregivers. This pilot study is intended to create a conversation regarding SCA and its implementation with persons with memory impairment who still live in the community with their caregivers. Analysis between the pre-training and post-training scores showed a trend to wards significance for Time (F(1, 9) = 0.064), no significance for Measure (F(3, 9) = 0.558), and no significance for the interaction of Time*Measure (F(3, 9) = 0.276). The effect size for Time was 0.732, for Measure was 0.494 and for Time*Measure was 0.956.

No description available.

No description available.

Afasi medför en språklig och kommunikativ begränsning för personer med afasi vid samspel med andra individer. Syftet med föreliggande studie är att undersöka interaktion mellan personer med afasi, samt mellan afasigruppsledare och deltagare i en afasigrupp under behandlingssituationer. Tre afasigrupper, med sammanlagt elva afasigruppsdeltagare och fyra afasigruppsledare deltog i föreliggande studie. Datainsamling skedde via videoupptagning samt ljudinspelning. Det insamlade materialet transkriberades och analyserades enligt samtalsanalytiska principer. Utöver videofilmning och ljudinspelning har deltagarna med afasi även testats med delar ur det neurolingvistiska testet A-ning. Resultat från föreliggande studie visar att utförandet av behandlingsövningar är föränderligt vid gruppintervention, där både afasigruppsdeltagare samt afasigruppsledare påverkar utförandet. Enligt tidigare forskning kan interaktion under intervention vanligen vara av institutionell karaktär. Gruppintervention i föreliggande studie har dock visat sig kunna avvika från detta system. Resultaten i föreliggande studie visar även att afasigruppsledaren använder sig av ett tydligare socialt fasadarbete under intervention i jämförelse med det sociala fasadarbetet mellan två afasigruppsdeltagare. Strategier som syftar till att stärka kommunikations- och språkförmåga hos afasigruppsdeltagaren har identifierats hos både afasigruppsledare och afasigruppsdeltagare i föreliggande studie. Föreliggande studie har gjort en beskrivning av hur interaktionen kan te sig vid behandling i afasigrupp. Emellertid finns ett fortsatt behov av att studera interaktion i afasigrupper för att synliggöra strategier som kan underlätta samspelet mellan samtliga samtalsdeltagare. / Aphasia is a language and communication impairment, which affects interaction with other individuals. The purpose of the present study is to investigate and describe interaction between people with aphasia and between the leaders and the participants in an aphasia group during treatment sessions. Three aphasia treatment groups, with a combined total of eleven aphasia group participants and four aphasia group leaders participated in the present study. Data was collected through audio and video recording. The recordings were transcribed and analyzed according to principles from Conversation Analysis. In addition to the video and audio recording, the participants with aphasia were also tested with parts of the Swedish neurolinguistic test A-ning. The results of the present study demonstrated that the execution of treatment tasks can change in interaction during group treatment sessions. Both aphasia group participants and aphasia group leaders were shown to have an influence on changing the characteristics of treatment tasks. Previous research has shown that interaction in intervention usually is institutional by nature. However, the interaction during group treatment in the present study was occasionally deviating from this system. The results of the present study also show that aphasia group leaders use face work more frequently in intervention, compared to the aphasia group participants. Strategies, which strengthen communication and language ability in persons with aphasia during interaction, are used by leaders as well as by participants in aphasia treatment groups. The present study has made a description of how interaction may appear in therapy in aphasia treatment groups. However, there is a continuous need to study interaction during aphasia treatment groups in order to identify strategies that may further facilitate interaction between all the participants in the group.

Background: The speech- and language deficit aphasia affects 12 000 persons annually in Sweden. Aphasia is caused by injury in the brain and the most common etiology is stroke. According to the tool for describing and assessing aphasia, A-FROM (Kagan et al., 2008), the four following aspects of aphasia need to be considered: severity of aphasia, participation in life situations, communication and language environment and personal factors. Several different interventions and treatments can be performed in every domain. There is scientific evidence for interventions performed by speech and language pathologists; however, the question is yet being discussed since results are unambiguous. Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to investigate which aphasia interventions performed by speech and language pathologists that are supported by evidence. A further purpose is to visit clinical practices to obtain data concerning how speech and language pathologists work with persons with aphasia. Method: Systematic search for literature was executed in seven medical databases. Articles that met certain criteria were graded regarding evidence. The authors additionally made visits to speech and language pathologists at a hospital Svealand, Sweden, for observation and interviewing of speech and language pathologists. Results and conclusions: The level of evidence for interventions varies. No intervention is investigated in more than three included studies and the number of participants is often small. Recommendations for clinical work can be given based on evidence from the included studies. The one intervention that was being studied by the most studies is CIAT/CILT. Interventions targeting expressive language, in particular word retrieval, have the strongest support in evidence. / Bakgrund: Språkstörningen afasi drabbar 12 000 personer årligen i Sverige. Afasi är en förvärvad språkstörning och orsakas av en skada i hjärnan, vanligaste orsaken är stroke.  Enligt ett verktyg för att beskriva och bedöma afasi, A-FROM (Kagan et al. 2008), kan man se till fyra aspekter av afasin: afasisvårigheter, delaktighet i vardagliga situationer, språklig och kommunikativ omgivning samt personliga faktorer. Inom varje domän kan flera olika typer av logopedisk intervention och behandling genomföras. Vetenskaplig evidens stödjer effekt av logopedisk intervention men diskussion pågår då resultaten inte är entydiga. Forskning på området är inte heller entydig kring vilken typ av intervention som har mest evidens att ge effekt. Syfte: Studiens huvudsyfte är att genom granskning av de senaste årens forskning besvara vilka logopediska afasiinterventioner som stöds av evidens. Ett ytterligare syfte är att göra besök i klinisk verksamhet för att inhämta data kring hur logopeder arbetar med personer med afasi. Metod: Systematiska litteratursökningar genomfördes i sju medicinska databaser. Artiklar som uppfyllde uppsatta inklusionskriterier evidensgraderades. Vidare besöktes ett sjukhus i Svealand för auskultation på och intervjuer med legitimerade logopeder. Resultat och slutsats: Studien visade på att afasiinterventioner har varierande grad av evidens. Varje typ av intervention behandlades av endast en eller ett fåtal inkluderade artiklar som ofta hade få försöksdeltagare. Förslag på rekommendationer för kliniskt arbete kan utfärdas utifrån inkluderade studier och deras evidensgrad. Den enskilda interventionen som studerats av flest inkluderade studier (tre studier) är CIAT/CILT. Starkast stöd i evidens har träning av expressiva förmågor, främst ordmobilisering.

<p><strong>Background: </strong>Many persons with aphasia (PWA) show deficits in sentence production and comprehension which are, in part, attributed to an inefficient mapping between messages and syntactic structures. Structural priming—the tendency to repeat a previously encountered sentence structure—has been shown to support implicit syntactic learning within and across production and comprehension modalities in healthy adults. Structural priming is effective in facilitating the production or comprehension of sentences in PWA. However, less is known about whether priming in one modality changes PWA’s performance in the other modality, which is crucial evidence needed for developing structural priming as a cost-effective intervention strategy in aphasia.</p> <p><strong>Aims</strong>: This study examined (a) whether production to comprehension cross-modality priming is effective in PWA, (b) whether priming-induced changes in syntactic comprehension lasted even in the absence of an immediate prime, and (c) whether there is a significant correlation between individuals’ priming effects and the change in their comprehension following priming.</p> <p><strong>Methods & Procedures: </strong>Thirteen PWA and 13 age-matched control participants completed a training study comprised of three phases: a pre-test, a production-to-comprehension priming block, and a post-test. In the pre- and post-tests, participants completed a sentence-picture matching task with sentences involving interpretations of an ambiguous prepositional phrase (e.g., The teacher is poking the monk <u>with a bat</u>). Participants were free to choose a picture corresponding to a high attachment (HA; e.g., the teacher is using the bat to poke the monk) or a low attachment (LA; e.g., the monk is the one holding the bat) interpretation. In the priming block, participants produced LA sentences as prime and then completed a sentence-picture matching task for comprehension targets, similar to the pre-test. </p> <p><strong>Results</strong>: Age-matched controls and PWA showed a significant priming effect when comparing the priming block to the pre-test. In both groups, the priming effect persisted when comparing picture selections in the pre- and post-tests. At the individual level, age-matched controls who showed larger priming effects also selected more LA pictures in the post-test compared to the pre-test, indicating that the priming effect accounted for the magnitude of change from the pre- to post-test. This correlation was also found in PWA.</p> <p><strong>Conclusion</strong>: The findings of this study suggest that production-to-comprehension cross-modality priming is effective and persistent in PWA and controls, in line with the view that structural priming is a form of implicit learning. Further, the findings support sentence processing models that suggest syntactic representations are shared between production and comprehension, and therefore, production influences future comprehension. Cross-modality priming from production to comprehension has clinical potential to improve sentence processing in PWA. </p>