Afasi-vänlig information
inför funktionell undersökning av språk med magnetresonanstomografi (fMRI)
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, fMRI, can be used for analyzing brain activity in subjects performing language tasks. The purpose of this study was to develop aphasia-friendly information adjusted to aphasic subjects participating in fMRI studies. The objectives were to investigate if adjusted information was important for the ability to perform language tasks and if the information could be used for different types of aphasia.Sixteen aphasic subjects participated in the study, six of these underwent fMRI. The participants varied in grade and type of aphasia. They had Swedish as their native language and were aged between 26 and 89, mean 57. Information was developed in three versions. The participants performed word generation and sentence completion language tasks.Results showed that all the participants produced significantly more words (p < 0.05), and completed significantly more sentences (p < 0.001) in the final version. The fMRI results showed high intersession variability, therefore intra- or intersubject comparisons were difficult to make.It was found that increased amount of time to solve the task and removal of the control task together with aphasia-friendly, concrete information improved performance. This applies to all participants, irrespective of aphasia type.