Linguistic Therapy as Treatment for Language Disorders
Abstract
Introduction
The aim of the study is finding out how linguistic treatment will aid more people who suffer from language disorders. This is done by using behavioral treatment with or without the addition of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in order to see which approach is more effective. Adding to the importance of the study is that this is the first time that research like this is conducted in Slovene-speakers with language disorders.
Method and Results
To study behavioral treatment, 3 people with Alzheimer’s disease (all females, 1 mild, 2 moderate cases) participated thus far. The therapy consisted of rTMS and then linguistic treatment with complex sentence structures was admitted for 60 minutes 5 times a week for 4 weeks. Preliminary results show improved language abilities for the mild AD participant after the end of the treatment. No impact was observed for participants with moderate AD. [1]
Similar findings have been reported in another study, where only rTMS was applied. Participants received rTMS 5 times a week for 3 weeks and participated in a) a picture-naming task where they were asked to name verbs (‘reading’), agent-nominalizations (‘reader’), process-nominalizations (‘reading), and nouns (‘book), b) a lexical decision task (online & offline) where they had to decide whether something is an existing Slovene word or not, and c) word-derivation task. Preliminary results show improved performance in the picture-naming task for all the under-investigation word categories. A slight improvement was observed in both the offline lexical decision task and the derivation task. An improved performance was achieved in the online lexical decision task after the rTMS. [2]
Discussion
Considering the preliminary results, we can expect the research of linguistic treatment in Slovenia in the future to benefit those suffering from language disorders.
References
[1] C. Manouilidou, M. Nerantzini, K. Marjanovič, G. Roumpea, Z. Pirtošek and J. Bon, "Transcranial magnetic stimulation coupled with behavioral intervention appears to improve sentence comprehension in early Alzheimer’s disease", Brain Stimulation, vol. 14, no. 6, p. 1622, 2021. Available: 10.1016/j.brs.2021.10.111 [Accessed 9 May 2022].
[2] G. Roumpea, K. Marjanovič, T. Mlinarič, Z. Pirtošek, J. Bon and C. Manouilidou, "Application of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment benefits language performance in Alzheimer’s disease: a case study", Brain Stimulation, vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 1607-1608, 2021. Available: 10.1016/j.brs.2021.10.065 [Accessed 9 May 2022].
