Thanks to Chiara for her report on this important new research forum.
On the 2nd May I attended a half-day event run by City, University of London’s, Division of Language and Communication Sciences (LCS) called ‘LCS Research Impact Event: Putting Research into Practice’.
As the name suggests this is a new initiative by the LCS to bridge the gap between research and practice by providing speech and language therapy practitioners and students with the opportunity to hear directly about relevant research. The event had two streams: adults and paediatrics, each consisting of four 30-minute presentations. I attended the adult stream.
The first talk entitled ‘Measuring what counts in aphasia therapy’ argued for the importance of using patient reported outcome measures, such as health-related quality of life as routine outcome measures.
The benefits being that they give you insight into the patient’s perspective on the impact of their condition, they are a tool for incorporating their views into clinical decision making and they provide holistic information on an intervention’s impact. The health-related quality of life measure focused on was the Stroke and Aphasia Quality of Life Scale (SAQOL-39g), which can be downloaded for free from www.cityaccess.org.
The talk also brought our attention to a paper by Wallace et al., (2019) which aimed to create a core outcome measure set for use in research with people with aphasia. Whilst not all outcome measures used in research are appropriate for clinical use, it is a useful analysis of current measures.
The second talk was about EVA park, a virtual reality platform designed for people with aphasia, used to deliver a range of interventions including group support, impairment-based therapies such as semantic feature analysis and functional communication interventions. The overall conclusions from numerous studies is that virtual delivery of these interventions is feasible and can provide significant benefits, although the impact various across the studies.
A key element for participants, which struck me, was how important it was that EVA park allowed participants to be creative and engage in fantasy. They are now in the early adopter phase, so I look forward to seeing more papers from EVA park, and ultimately the aim is to release the platform into the wider clinical community.
The LUNA project was discussed next. Focusing on discourse analysis and interventions, this project consists of five phases. Phases one and two, a review of existing evidence and survey of clinicians on their discourse analysis and treatment, have found that whilst discourse is considered an essential therapy target, there is very limited evidence around what the best approaches are.
Phases three to five therefore aim to co-design and test new clinical tools for discourse, so this is a project to watch. An important aspect of the EVA and LUNA projects are their co-design element, highly timely given the increasing evidence that public and patient involvement can improve research.
The final talk was about the CommuniCATE project which investigated the impact of technology-enhanced therapy for people with aphasia. The project used technologies such as kindles and dragon (voice recognition software) to provide therapy in four areas: speaking, supported conversation, reading and writing. The talk focused on the outcomes for the reading and writing therapy.
It was great to hear that the therapy improved writing and reading comprehension, although these gains were only seen when the technology was used to support reading and writing. Furthermore, participants reported significant improvements in reading confidence and pride in their written output. Highlighted was the importance of focusing the final sessions of therapy on skills maintenance, involving practicing in the community and training with family and friends.
I’m sure the paediatric stream was just as informative, but alas I have not figured out how to be in two places at once!
The LCS are hoping to run more of these events, so keep an eye out for more information at @CityLCS and #LCSResearchIntoPractice.
Additional information:
- Some LCS research resources are available at: cityaccess.org.
Patient-reported outcome measures:
- A list of SAQOL-39g references can be accessed at: https://cara-portal.azurewebsites.net/tests/saqol#references
- Wallace, S. J., Worrall, L., Rose, T., Le Dorze, G., Breitenstein, C., Hilari, K., … & Copland, D. (2019). A core outcome set for aphasia treatment research: the ROMA consensus statement. International Journal of Stroke, 14(2), 180-185.
EVA park
- @EVAphasia
- Amaya, A., Woolf, C., Devane, N., Galliers, J., Talbot, R., Wilson, S., & Marshall, J. (2018). Receiving aphasia intervention in a virtual environment: the participants’ perspective. Aphasiology, 32(5), 538-558.
- Carragher, M., Talbot, R., Devane, N., Rose, M., & Marshall, J. (2018). Delivering storytelling intervention in the virtual world of EVA Park. Aphasiology, 32(sup1), 37-39.
- Marshall, J., Booth, T., Devane, N., Galliers, J., Greenwood, H., Hilari, K., … & Woolf, C. (2016). Evaluating the benefits of aphasia intervention delivered in virtual reality: Results of a quasi-randomised study. PloS one, 11(8), e0160381.
- Marshall, J., Devane, N., Edmonds, L., Talbot, R., Wilson, S., Woolf, C., & Zwart, N. (2018). Delivering word retrieval therapies for people with aphasia in a virtual communication environment. Aphasiology, 32(9), 1054-1074.
- Wilson, S., Roper, A., Marshall, J., Galliers, J., Devane, N., Booth, T., & Woolf, C. (2015). Codesign for people with aphasia through tangible design languages. CoDesign, 11(1), 21-34.
LUNA project
CommuniCATE project
- @Communi_CATE
- Marshall, J., Caute, A., Chadd, K., Cruice, M., Monnelly, K., Wilson, S., & Woolf, C. (2019). Technology‐enhanced writing therapy for people with aphasia: results of a quasi‐randomized waitlist controlled study. International journal of language & communication disorders, 54(2), 203-220.
- Caute, A. et al (under review) Technology Enhanced Reading
Therapy for People with Aphasia: Findings from a Quasi-Randomised Waitlist Controlled Study