Highlights
- •Aphasia is an acquired disorder of language, present in 20–40% of stroke patients.
- •Post-stroke aphasics significantly have lower health-related quality of life.
- •Predicting aphasia recovery is difficult due to substantial variability in outcomes.
- •This depends on interplay between lesion, anagraphic, and treatment-related factors.
- •The most robust predictors of recovery appear to be lesion-related factors.
Abstract
Background
Aphasia is an important stroke sequel that impacts negatively on the HQoL of stroke
patients. Although a number of stroke patients with aphasia will have good functional
recovery, many are left with language deficits.
Method
Papers were identified through PubMed and MEDLINE search, with keywords such as: ‘stroke’,
‘aphasia’, ‘post-stroke aphasia’, ‘factors that predict aphasia recovery’, ‘aphasia
outcomes’ and ‘aphasia prognosis’.
Results
The most important factors that determine recovery are the lesion location and size,
aphasia type and severity and to some extent the nature of early haemodynamic response,
and treatment received. Anagraphic factors like gender, age, handedness and education
have not been found to be robust predictors of recovery.
Conclusions
Predicting post-stroke aphasia recovery is difficult, because of the interplay between
lesion, anagraphic, and treatment-related factors, in addition to the role of neuroplasticity.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 21, 2015
Accepted:
March 12,
2015
Received in revised form:
March 11,
2015
Received:
January 28,
2015
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
