Longitudinal treatment of primary progressive aphasia: A case study

Abstract

The purpose of ths longitudinal study was to describe the evolving treatment regimen provided to a woman with a 4 year history of non-fluent primary progressive aphasia (PPA). Over her 2.5 years of treatment, three different therapy approaches were used to adapt to her changing communicative abilities and needs : (i) a traditional stimulation-facilitation approach, (ii) the ‘Back-to-the-drawing board’ programme, and (iii) a functional communication approach including provision of an augmentative communication device. Improvement was found following each treatment approach indicating that PPA patients can continue to benefit from long-term speech-language pathology services.