Treating limb apraxia via action semantics: a preliminary study.
Harrison Stoll, Matthieu M de Wit, Erica L Middleton and 1 others
PMID 32429797WHAT IT FOUND
Three people with post-stroke limb apraxia showed different responses.
Two improved hand posture on trained tools after tool-use practice, and one also improved after semantic action training. Untreated tools did not improve.
Key findings
01The first participant improved hand posture on trained tools after Tool Use Treatment, from 53% to 93% correct, but not after Action Network Treatment.
02The second participant showed numerical improvement after both treatments, from 87% to 100% correct after Tool Use Treatment and from 60% to 87% correct after Action Network Treatment, but no change was reported as significant.
03The third participant improved hand posture on trained tools after both treatments, from 55% to 75% correct after Tool Use Treatment and from 40% to 75% correct after Action Network Treatment, but untrained tools did not improve and untrained tools after Action Network Treatment declined.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only three participants took part, and the design did not allow conclusions about which apraxia profile predicts response. For the second participant, high pre-treatment hand posture scores may have made improvement hard to detect. Untreated tools were selected by performance, not by semantic relation to treated tools, so the study did not strongly test generalization. The main hand posture outcome showed no generalization, and untrained tools after Action Network Treatment declined.
Declared interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that Action Network Treatment or Tool Use Treatment works for most people with limb apraxia. The study had only three participants, hand posture changes were inconsistent, and untrained tools did not improve.