Virtual Reality Training for Aphasia Rehabilitation (Aphasia360)

Catholic University of the Sacred Heart

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Anomic Aphasia

Treatments: Behavioral: Standard videos; Behavioral: Video 360

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05793879

UC

Details and patient eligibility

About

Aphasia is an acquired deficit following acute damage to the central nervous system that involves the difficulty or impossibility of understanding and formulating language. A typical disorder of non-fluent forms of aphasia is anomia. Anomia refers to the difficulty in finding words, in particular when trying to name objects and actions. According to the Embodied Cognition approach (EC), language is tightly connected to the motor system. In this view, language rehabilitation programs should stimulate language through the activation of the motor system. In this approach, since anomic deficits are often due to a weak link between the meaning of the word and its lemma, the Hebbs' principles of coincident and correlated learning can be exploited, i.e., by intensifying the synchronous activation of lexicon and semantics and connecting them with the motor counterpart. In this study, the investigators present an innovative training, based on the EC framework, in which they will make use of new technologies for anomia rehabilitation in post-stroke patients. Specifically, the researchers will use immersive 360° videos representing everyday actions displayed from the first-person point of view, experienced through a head-mounted display. The training will be administered 3 times a week for 4 weeks. The control group will watch standard videos representing the same actions recorded from the third-person perspective. Naming abilities will be tested before and after the training together with other cognitive and psychological measures. The investigators expect that the group who will undergo the 360° video-based training will show greater improvement of performance compared to the control group.

Enrollment: 40 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 80 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• naming disorder in the post-acute phase (index event occurring at least 6 months earlier)
• to have already received rehabilitation treatment in the acute phase
• noun naming below cut-off
• verbs naming below cut- off

Exclusion criteria

• concomitant or pre-existing (with respect to the index event) neurological and psychiatric deficits
• epilepsy
• balance disorders
• neglect

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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40 participants in 2 patient groups

Video 360

Experimental group

Description:

Patients will watch spherical videos displaying everyday actions towards objects; an audio is embedded describing the action and the object represented (i.e. "I'm cutting the potatoes").

Treatment:

Behavioral: Video 360

Standard video

Active Comparator group

Description:

Patients will watch standard videos displaying everyday actions towards objects; an audio is embedded describing the action and the object represented (i.e. "I'm cutting the potatoes")

Treatment:

Behavioral: Standard videos