Late Effects of Cerebrovascular Accident Clinical Trial
— strokeOfficial title:
Main Idea Perception of Written Stories and in Pictures Among Impaired Right Hemisphere Patients
| Verified date | November 2017 |
| Source | Sheba Medical Center |
| Contact | n/a |
| Is FDA regulated | No |
| Health authority | |
| Study type | Interventional |
Main idea perception of written stories and in pictures among impaired right hemisphere
patients Abstract The right hemisphere is considered to complement the language processing
abilities of the opposite hemisphere; it is responsible for the processing of secondary and
unusual characteristics of linguistic stimulates. This processing enables, among other
functions, the comprehension of metaphors and humor. Additionally, it enables the execution
of inferring from spoken and written discourse. Studies which deal with common impairments
among right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD) individuals, found that inference processing of written
stories and narrative sequences presented in pictures was impaired. This impairment could
damage the ability to create global coherence, which is an important component of central
theme comprehension of different types of narrative. Another important component is
superstructures, schemas which aid creating, remembering and producing the main ideas of
spoken and written discourse. Other studies consider impairment in creating global coherence,
or Theory of Mind impairment, as the source of central theme comprehension impairment among
RHD individuals.
Discourse is an integral part of interpersonal communication, and of proper social conduct.
The themes chosen for conversation reflect the functional role of discourse from semantic and
pragmatic points of view.
The aim of the current study is to deepen the current knowledge concerning central theme
comprehension among RHD individuals following cerebrovascular accident (CVA), in two genres
of written discourse (classic stories and stories with a twist), and in situations
represented by single pictures. Unlike written stories, the extraction of the central theme
out of a single picture requires focusing on a single situation and relying on non-linguistic
visual information. Differences concerning central theme comprehension in the different
discourse genres and in the pictures might be able to assist in selecting diagnostic and
therapeutic tools designed to work on high cognitive-linguistic abilities, which are usually
impaired among RHD individuals. In later stage, these tools are meant to help improving RHD
individuals' spontaneous narrative skills.
The study will include 20 RHD adults following CVA, and 20 healthy adults without any known
damage to the right hemisphere. The two groups will be matched concerning sex, age,
educational level and socio-economic status. The subjects will perform the study tests during
three sessions, 60 minutes each. The screening tests will include language diagnosis -
Western Aphasia Battery (WAB), and reading test no. 37 included in the Psycholinguistic
Assessments of Language Processing in Aphasia's battery (PALPA). Patients diagnosed with
aphasia will be excluded from research. The research tests will include: central theme
comprehension test in stories and pictures, including classic stories, stories with a twist,
and pictures of different situations (each will be accompanied by a multiple-choice question
concerning the central theme), sub- exanimations taken from "Frigbi" battery designed to
evaluate memory and phonological memory capacity, Raven's Progressive Colored Matrices test
designed to evaluate pre-morbid abilities (non-linguistic), Theory of Mind (T.O.M) evaluation
test, and tests designed to evaluate central coherence impairment: Navon Figures test for
evaluation of global visual perception impairment, and Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test
(RCFT) - Recall Form test for evaluation of visual-perceptive organizational ability, and
non-verbal memory. The performances of the two groups will be compared in each test using
statistical tests. In addition, the interaction between all variables will be measured.
| Status | Completed |
| Enrollment | 30 |
| Est. completion date | September 2017 |
| Est. primary completion date | September 2017 |
| Accepts healthy volunteers | Accepts Healthy Volunteers |
| Gender | All |
| Age group | 20 Years to 100 Years |
| Eligibility |
Inclusion Criteria: first stroke without primary diminutive impairment Hebrew as a first language Exclusion Criteria: previous neurological illness irritable patient |
| Country | Name | City | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| n/a | |||
| Lead Sponsor | Collaborator |
|---|---|
| Sheba Medical Center |
| Type | Measure | Description | Time frame | Safety issue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | Picture and Story Comprehension Interview Score | Patients were administered the Picture and Story Comprehension Interview. This measure includes 12 short story items and 30 picture items. Regarding each item, patients were asked to choose the sentence that best represented the main idea of the picture or story (multiple choice questions). The interview score was computed as the sum of correct answers. | 1 hour |