Switching attention deficits in post-stroke individuals with different aphasia types

ABSTRACT

Background

Previous studies have shown that individuals with aphasia have impairments in switching attention compared to healthy controls. However, there is insufficient information about the characteristics of switching attention within one task and whether attention deficits vary depending on aphasia type and lesion location. We aimed to address these knowledge gaps by investigating characteristics of switching attention within one type of task in participants with different types of aphasia and distinct lesion sites.

Method

Forty individuals with post-stroke aphasia (20 with non-fluent aphasia and frontal lobe damage, and 20 with fluent aphasia and temporal lobe damage) and 20 neurologically healthy age-matched individuals performed an attention switching task. They listened to sequences of high-pitched and low-pitched tones that were presented to them one by one, tallied them separately, and, at the end of each sequence, had to say how many high- and low-pitched tones they had heard.

Results

Participants with aphasia performed significantly worse on the task compared to healthy controls, and the performance of two aphasia groups also differed. Specifically, individuals with both aphasia types made more errors than healthy individuals, and the participants with non-fluent aphasia responded more slowly than controls, while reaction times of the participants with fluent aphasia did not differ significantly from those of controls. Also, the two groups of participants with aphasia differed significantly in accuracy, with individuals in the non-fluent group making more errors.

Conclusions

The data demonstrated that people with different types of aphasia have distinct impairments in switching attention. Since cognitive deficits impact language performance, this information is important for differentially addressing their language problems and selecting more specific and optimal rehabilitation programs that target different underlying mechanisms.

KEYWORDS:

• Aphasia
• non-fluent aphasia
• Fluent aphasia
• attention
• switching attention

Acknowledgments

We extend gratitude to the staff of the Center for Speech Pathology and Neurorehabilitation for assistance with participant recruitment. We thank Anastasia Ulicheva and Lidia Petrova for their help with data collection. We are sincerely grateful to all individuals with aphasia who took part in the study.

This work was supported by the Center for Language and Brain NRU Higher School of Economics under RF Government grant, ag. №14.641.31.0004. MVI contribution was also supported by NIH/NIDCD grant R01 DC016345.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Center for Language and Brain NRU Higher School of Economics under RF Government grant [14.641.31.0004]; NIH/NIDCD grant [R01 DC016345].