Long-Term maintenance of anomia treatment effects in primary progressive aphasia

ABSTRACT

This study examined the maintenance of anomia treatment effects in primary progressive aphasia (PPA). Following baseline testing, a phonological treatment and an orthographic treatment were administered over the course of six months. The treatment stimuli consisted of nouns that were consistently named correctly at baseline (Prophylaxis items) and/or nouns that were consistently named incorrectly at baseline (Remediation items). Naming accuracy was measured at baseline, and it was measured at 1 month, 8 months, and 15 months post-treatment. The change in naming accuracy from baseline to each post-treatment evaluation was calculated within each treatment condition, and within a matched untrained condition. The change in naming accuracy was then compared between the three conditions. The results of these analyses indicate that phonological and orthographic treatments are both effective in the Prophylaxis and Remediation of anomia in all three variants of PPA. For Prophylaxis items, some of the effects of each treatment can persist for as long as 15 months post-treatment. These long-term treatment effects were more robust in the orthographic treatment condition and for participants with the semantic variant of PPA.

KEYWORDS:

• Treatment
• Maintenance
• Primary progressive aphasia
• Anomia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Post-treatment results from 21 of the current study’s 26 participants (without a mixed diagnosis) were included in Meyer, Faria, Tippett, Hillis, and Friedman (2017) (all but LV4, LV11, LV12, NFV8, and NFV9). Post-treatment results from 17 of the current study’s participants were included in Meyer, Getz, et al. (2016) (all but LV9, LV10, LV11, LV12, SV5, NFV6, NFV7, NFV8, and NFV9). In addition, post-treatment results from nine of the current study’s participants with lvPPA (LV1-LV9) and all of the participants with svPPA were included in Meyer, Tippett, et al. ( 2018).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders under grant numbers R01DC011317 and R01DC011317-01AS1.