Prophylaxis and remediation of anomia in the semantic and logopenic variants of primary progressive aphasia.
Aaron M Meyer, Donna C Tippett, Rhonda B Friedman
PMID 26892944WHAT IT FOUND
Naming practice using spoken repetition or written copying helped people with semantic or logopenic progressive aphasia keep or improve names for practiced words compared with untrained words.
Results were strongest in semantic variant; logopenic variant effects were mixed.
Key findings
01In svPPA, both phonological and orthographic treatment produced significantly smaller declines in oral naming accuracy for prophylaxis items and significantly greater increases for remediation items than untrained items.
02In svPPA, orthographic treatment significantly reduced decline in written naming and scene description for prophylaxis items, while phonological treatment did not significantly reduce written naming decline and only marginally reduced scene description decline.
03In lvPPA, both treatments significantly reduced decline for untrained picture exemplars in oral naming prophylaxis, but there was no significant treatment effect for trained exemplars; remediation oral naming showed only a marginal phonological treatment advantage.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study included only 14 participants, with 5 in svPPA and 9 in lvPPA, and only 4 lvPPA participants had remediation items. The comparison was between word sets within each participant, not between separate groups of people assigned to different treatments. Many naming tasks, exemplars and item types were tested, and some lvPPA outcomes were null or marginal. Post-treatment testing occurred only one month after treatment ended, so longer maintenance is unknown. Two participants were tested remotely, and some in-person participants' data had already been reported in another study. Participants had svPPA or lvPPA, not the nonfluent/agrammatic variant. In lvPPA remediation, naming accuracy increased from baseline to post-treatment even in the untrained condition, so treatment-specific effects are harder to separate.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that either treatment reverses anomia in primary progressive aphasia. The study compared named and untrained words within each participant after six months of treatment and one month delay, so it shows item-specific preservation or improvement, not a general cure. In lvPPA remediation, naming accuracy also increased in the untrained condition, so the treatment effect is not fully separated.