From singing to speaking: why singing may lead to recovery of expressive language function in patients with Broca’s aphasia
From singing to speaking: why singing may lead to recovery of expressive language function in patients with Broca’s aphasia
Lesson: Αγγλικά 3 (Ορολογία)
1.1 Melodic Intonation Therapy:
It has been reported that patients suffering from nonfluent aphasia are better if they sing lyrics rather than speaking the same words. This observation led to the development of Melodic Intonation Therapy also known as M.I.T. a treatment applied in patients with large left-hemisphere lesions.
Aphasia is a condition in which the patient has partial or total loss of the ability to communicate verbally. A person with aphasia may have difficulty speaking, reading, writing, recognizing the names of objects or understanding what other people have said. It is caused by a brain injury such as a tumor, stroke or trauma and is also devided into fluent and nonfluent categories.
Nonfluent aphasia which is our case today usually results from lesions in the frontal lobe and is also known as Broca’s aphasia. As far as treatment is concerned there are no universally accepted methods of nonfluent aphasia nor have any criteria been established. So speech therapists have to evaluate patients’ individual needs in order to help them recover language/facilitate communication. For this reason they use a combination of techniques. Research has shown that in patients with small lesions there tends to be more activation of the left hemisphere peri-lesional cortex and variable right hemisphere activation during the recovery process or after recovery. In patients however with large left-hemisphere lesions there tends to be more activation of the homologous language-capable regions in the right hemisphere.
Assuming we would like to treat patients effectively we need to explore treatments that can better engage both language-capable regions of the brain and change the course of natural recovery through neural reorganization. One therapy capable of engaging regions in both
Lesson: Αγγλικά 3 (Ορολογία)
1.1 Melodic Intonation Therapy:
It has been reported that patients suffering from nonfluent aphasia are better if they sing lyrics rather than speaking the same words. This observation led to the development of Melodic Intonation Therapy also known as M.I.T. a treatment applied in patients with large left-hemisphere lesions.
Aphasia is a condition in which the patient has partial or total loss of the ability to communicate verbally. A person with aphasia may have difficulty speaking, reading, writing, recognizing the names of objects or understanding what other people have said. It is caused by a brain injury such as a tumor, stroke or trauma and is also devided into fluent and nonfluent categories.
Nonfluent aphasia which is our case today usually results from lesions in the frontal lobe and is also known as Broca’s aphasia. As far as treatment is concerned there are no universally accepted methods of nonfluent aphasia nor have any criteria been established. So speech therapists have to evaluate patients’ individual needs in order to help them recover language/facilitate communication. For this reason they use a combination of techniques. Research has shown that in patients with small lesions there tends to be more activation of the left hemisphere peri-lesional cortex and variable right hemisphere activation during the recovery process or after recovery. In patients however with large left-hemisphere lesions there tends to be more activation of the homologous language-capable regions in the right hemisphere.
Assuming we would like to treat patients effectively we need to explore treatments that can better engage both language-capable regions of the brain and change the course of natural recovery through neural reorganization. One therapy capable of engaging regions in both