Group Based Treatment for Persons With Social Communication Difficulties

Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital

Status

Completed

Conditions

Brain Injuries

Treatments

Behavioral: Intensive GIST

Behavioral: Standard GIST

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT03636399

2017/1360

Details and patient eligibility

About

A large proportion of patients with ABI have cognitive deficits that affect the way they communicate. Cognitive difficulties with attention, memory, executive functions and so on affect social communication. Without successful social skills, a person may engage in conflicts, become isolated and be denied access to social and vocational opportunities. Internationally, several group interventions have been developed for treating social communication difficulties during the last years.

Group Interactive Structured Treatment (GIST) is a validated holistic multidisciplinary group treatment targeting social communication skills after traumatic brain injury. The main aim of the present study is to examine the efficacy of GIST for improving social communication in persons with acquired brain injury, including TBI, stroke, tumor ect. Secondary the study aims to compare the standard GIST protocol to an newly developed intensive GIST protocol. Efficacy will be assessed immediately after intervention, but also three and six months after the intervention. The project is in line with international research efforts aimed to establish more knowledge about group treatment for persons with social communication disorders after ABI.

Enrollment

49 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 75 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

traumatic brain injury (TBI), cerebrovascular accidents (stroke; CVA) patients with no concomitant diseases minimum 6 months post-injury
The patient are experiencing social communication disorders
The family member is experiencing the patients social communication disorders
The patient is motivated and expresses a desire to change communication behavior
One close family member is able to participate in the intervention process
Adequate Norwegian language proficiency to participate in the group
The patient experiences moderate to severe difficulties with minimum 3 aspects of communication assessed with La Trobe Questionnaire
The patient have insight into their communication difficulties (minimum intellectual insight) assessed with Awareness Questionnaire

Exclusion criteria

Age <18 years
Aphasia. Based on previous records.
Major psychiatric disorder or reported ongoing alcohol or substance abuse
Premorbid neurological disease or insult and/or comorbid neurological disease
Impaired basic linguistic, mnemonic, motor, or perceptual function that can interfere with the ability to engage with the training or intelligence quotient (IQ) < 85