Switching attention deficits in post-stroke individuals with different aphasia types.
Svetlana V Kuptsova, Olga V Dragoy, Maria V Ivanova
PMID 36699113WHAT IT FOUND
People with non-fluent aphasia made more errors and responded slower than controls when switching attention between tones.
People with fluent aphasia also made more errors but responded at normal speeds. These deficits occurred even without language tasks, suggesting attention problems are distinct from language loss.
Key findings
01Participants with non-fluent aphasia performed significantly worse than controls on both accuracy and reaction time measures.
02Participants with fluent aphasia made significantly more errors than controls, but their reaction times did not differ significantly from controls.
03There were no significant differences in reaction times between the non-fluent and fluent aphasia groups.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study did not include a control task without switching demands, so it could not isolate specific 'switching costs' from general attentional load. Lesion data relied on written reports rather than direct imaging analysis, preventing precise lesion-symptom mapping. The study did not assess other cognitive domains (like memory or executive function) separately, so it is unclear if the errors were due to attention alone or combined cognitive deficits. Participants were all Russian speakers, which may limit generalizability to other linguistic populations.
Declared interests
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that attention deficits are simply a byproduct of severe language impairment. The study found no relationship between aphasia severity scores and attention task performance, suggesting these are distinct cognitive domains that require separate assessment and management.