Word Retrieval in the Wild in People With Post-Stroke Aphasia

Plain-language summary

People with post-stroke aphasia (PWA) suffer from anomia, a condition where they know what they want to say but cannot retrieve the words. For PWA, word retrieval changes moment-to-moment, leading to diminished motivation to participate in conversations and disengagement from social interactions. In the real world, anomia variability and severity are compounded by contextual factors of communication exchanges (noise, dual-tasking). Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) involves in-situ measurement of a behavior over time during everyday life. EMA has promise for capturing real-world anomia, yet EMA methods have not been tested in PWA. Therefore, the aims of this pilot study are to (1) determine the relative feasibility of two types of smartwatch-delivered EMA (traditional-EMA and micro-EMA) in PWA and (2) determine the extent to which patient-specific factors relate to feasibility. Twenty PWA will be recruited and randomly assigned to either traditional-EMA or micro-EMA conditions. To target in-situ anomia, PWA will complete 36 picture-naming trials/day for three weeks, delivered either as a single trial 36 times per day (micro-EMA) or in four sets of nine trials/set per day (traditional-EMA). Due to the "at-a-glance" single trial delivery of micro-EMA, the investigators hypothesize that PWA in the micro-EMA condition will demonstrate better protocol adherence than PWA in the traditional-EMA condition. Older age, more severe cognitive-linguistic deficits, and greater discomfort with technology will be related to poorer compliance, lower completion, greater perceived burden, and lower intelligibility of naming audio recordings. This bench-to-bedside research will begin a translational path to implement EMA/micro-EMA into routine assessment of aphasia.

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