Translation. Region: Russian Federal
Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –
Scientists Center of Language and Brain HSE University has identified factors that make digital rehabilitation applications for patients with aphasia more effective. Feedback, a variety of game tasks, a long period of rehabilitation and constant contact with the attending physician were found to be the most important for restoring speech function. Articlepublishedin the journal NeuroRehabilitation.
Aphasia is a disorder in which there is a complete or partial loss of the ability to speak and perceive the speech of others, which is associated with damage to the areas of the brain responsible for speech functions. The main causes of aphasia are stroke, traumatic brain injury, inflammatory diseases of the brain, brain tumors, dementia.
Aphasia significantly reduces the quality of human life, so scientists have long been looking for effective methods to restore speech function. With the spread of smartphones and tablets, another promising and rapidly developing area of rehabilitation has emerged – “serious games” (SG) in applications.
This is a special type of digital games that are created not only for entertainment, but also to achieve specific educational, training or research goals. In the field of education, they help in the professional training of specialists, teaching students, and learning foreign languages. In healthcare, such games are used in the rehabilitation of patients.
With the help of applications, a person with aphasia can perform speech training tasks and gradually restore the lost ability. The effectiveness of such applications has already been proven, but it remained unclear what tasks and functions should be included in the applications and how long to work with them in order to achieve maximum success.
Scientists from the HSE Center for Language and Brain studied the PubMed and ScienceDirect databases and selected 18 articles devoted to testing mobile and computer applications for rehabilitation in aphasia.
The researchers paid special attention to situations where training led to greater results. For example, a patient trained in naming 100 words, but improved in naming 150 words, or was able to use the learned words not only in oral speech, but also in writing. Sometimes the use of smart games led to the development of related skills: for example, a person trained speech, but improved attention.
Fourteen out of 18 articles (78%) noted that patients’ use of the app had a positive effect. Most studies proved the app’s effectiveness by the primary criteria: exactly what was trained improved. And eight articles (44%) reported that the results exceeded expectations. Most often, the person could use the trained word in other contexts, such as in writing. In addition, two articles described improvements in other higher mental functions.
As the analysis showed, the efficiency of the applications was influenced by such factors as automatic feedback, variety of game tasks used in training, long periods of treatment, and patient-doctor interaction. The last point is especially important, since rehabilitation therapists additionally motivate the person and evaluate intermediate results.
“In our center, we are working on creating a game for the rehabilitation of patients with aphasia. A review of the research will help test it in the most effective mode, implement the functions necessary for successful operation. Existing applications often have few gamification elements; in fact, they are electronic collections of exercises. We will try to correct this shortcoming in order to increase user engagement,” said Georgy Gorshkov, a junior research fellow at the HSE Center for Language and Brain.
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