Using music for persons with non-fluent aphasia continues to be published. In this recent article neurologic music therapy was compared to speech language therapy in persons post-stroke.

Lim et al. (2013) recruited 21 persons who had stroke and were diagnosed with nonfleunt aphasia (according to the Korean version of the Western Aphasia Battery or K-WAB). Both groups received speech therapy services, but only the “NMT” group received music therapy services. The intervention for NMT included melodic intonation with rhythmic slapping (perhaps they mean tapping?), therapeutic singing, and breathing exercises. Treatment was offered 2xs a week for a month.

Within their population pool, they divided the groups into subacute (stroke occurred in previous 3 months) and chronic (more than 3 months). Patients’ “aphasia quotient” and scores of spontaneous speaking, repetition, and naming were used to determine differences.

Persons with in the subacute NMT group showed improvements the AQ, repetition, and naming; whereas, the subacute speech group showed significant improvements in only the repetition. There were no significant differences for persons in the chronic group.

These researchers applied non-parametric statistics, which is a good choice since the low number of participants in each group would yield too low of power for parametric testing. Data presented on graphs shows some differences in measures before treatment that could be considered – one area where both showed limited ability was spontaneous speech, which showed no significant improvement for either group. Look for yourself – this is a open access article!!

Reference:

Lim, K.B., Kim, Y.K., Lee, H.J., Yoo, J., Hwang, J.Y., Kim, J.A., & Kim, S.K. (2013). The therapeutic effect of neurologic music therapy and speech language therapy in post-stroke aphasic patients. Ann Rehabil Med., 37(4), 556-62. doi: 10.5535/arm.2013.37.4.556. PMID: 24020037

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