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Enhancing Aphasia Therapy with tDCS: A Practitioner's Guide

Enhancing Aphasia Therapy with tDCS: A Practitioner’s Guide

Aphasia, an impairment in language function often resulting from brain damage, presents significant challenges for both patients and practitioners. Traditional speech-language therapy has shown limited improvements, particularly in the chronic stage of aphasia. However, recent research offers promising advancements in this field. One such study, "Enhancement of Facilitation Training for Aphasia by Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation," provides insights into how practitioners can enhance their therapeutic approaches.

Understanding tDCS and Its Application

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive neuromodulation technique that has been explored for its potential to improve language functions in chronic aphasia. The study by Ihara et al. (2020) investigated the effects of combining tDCS with tablet-based language training on non-consecutive days, targeting the left inferior frontal cortex.

Key Findings

The study demonstrated that participants who received tDCS showed greater improvements in naming and sentence production tasks compared to those who received sham stimulation. Notably, the accuracy rate of naming was significantly higher in the tDCS condition, and there was a significant improvement in the production of related words and sentences for untrained words.

Implementing tDCS in Practice

To incorporate the findings of this study into your practice, consider the following steps:

Encouraging Further Research

While the study provides compelling evidence for the effectiveness of tDCS in aphasia therapy, it also highlights the need for further research. Practitioners are encouraged to explore additional studies and contribute to the growing body of knowledge in this field.

For a deeper understanding of the study and its methodology, you can access the original research paper here: Enhancement of Facilitation Training for Aphasia by Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation.


Citation: Ihara, A. S., Miyazaki, A., Izawa, Y., Takayama, M., Hanayama, K., & Tanemura, J. (2020). Enhancement of facilitation training for aphasia by transcranial direct current stimulation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 14, 573459. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.573459
Marnee Brick, President, TinyEYE Therapy Services

Author's Note: Marnee Brick, TinyEYE President, and her team collaborate to create our blogs. They share their insights and expertise in the field of Speech-Language Pathology, Online Therapy Services and Academic Research.

Connect with Marnee on LinkedIn to stay updated on the latest in Speech-Language Pathology and Online Therapy Services.

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