Combined Exercise and Targeted Therapy for Post-Stroke Reading Deficits
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Phono-Motor Therapy, Aerobic Exercise Training (AET), Stretching.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Stroke, Aphasia, Reading Disorder. Basic parameters: 18 years — 85 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- United States
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Official title
Improving Reading Competence in Aphasia With Combined Aerobic Exercise and Phono-Motor Treatment
Overview
The goal of the proposed project is to test the effectiveness of a novel hybrid approach to treatment of reading disorders after stroke, in which exercise training will be used in combination with a targeted reading treatment. This approach is expected to increase cerebral circulation and help to rebuild and strengthen the damaged phonological neural networks. Through this combinatory approach, the study aims to enhance the reading and language improvements seen with existing treatments.
Detailed description
Close to 2.5 million Americans are currently living with post-stroke aphasia, a debilitating communication disorder affecting multiple language modalities. Most stroke survivors with aphasia have acquired reading deficits, which persist chronically and severely limit life participation and autonomy. There is an urgent need for effective treatments grounded in stroke neurobiology which yield robust functional improvements. This project is a randomized controlled trial, which will recruit 70 individuals with chronic left-hemisphere stroke. Participants will complete 40 sessions of targeted reading treatment combined with either 20 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise or light stretching. Participants will undergo 3 Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans, administered before the intervention, after the initial exercise session, and after the full course of treatment. They will also complete behavioral testing before and after the intervention. The outcome of this study has the potential to radically change how reading treatments are applied, increasing their effectiveness, and ultimately improving the lives of 2.5 million Americans living with stroke-related aphasia. In addition, it is likely that the results will contribute to the understanding of stroke recovery mechanisms thereby fundamentally advancing the field of neurorehabilitation.
Interventions
- Behavioral Phono-Motor Therapy
The goal of PMT is to build orthographic and phonological awareness and phonological sequence knowledge. During PMT, participants will complete a series of tasks manipulating minimal sound units (consonants (C) \& vowels (V)), combining these units into syllables (CVC, CVCC, CCVC) and syllable sequences (real words and readable nonwords). PMT will aim to engage 5 modalities: visual, acoustic, tactile kinesthetic, motor, and orthographic. Multisyllabic stimuli used during treatment will consist o - Behavioral Aerobic Exercise Training (AET)
Stationary ergometer cycling at 60% heart rate range for 20 minutes, plus 5 minutes of warm up and cool down. - Behavioral Stretching
Light stretching activities targeting the head/neck, shoulder, elbow/forearm, hand/wrist, trunk/hip, ankle/foot.
Primary outcome measures
- Reading Aloud [Time frame: Baseline and within 2 weeks of treatment completion (~10 weeks from study onset)]
- 2 Alternative Forced Choice Computer Tasks [Time frame: Baseline and within 2 weeks of treatment completion (~10 weeks from study onset)]
- Reading Comprehension Battery for Aphasia - 2nd edition (RCBA-2) [Time frame: Baseline and within 2 weeks of treatment completion (~10 weeks from study onset)]
- Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF) [Time frame: Baseline, after a single session of acute exercise, and within 2 weeks of treatment completion (~10 weeks from study onset)]
- Resting State Functional Connectivity (rsFC) [Time frame: Baseline, after a single session of acute exercise, and within 2 weeks of treatment completion (~10 weeks from study onset)]
- Task-induced fMRI activation [Time frame: Baseline and within 2 weeks of treatment completion (~10 weeks from study onset)]
Secondary outcome measures (2)
- Western Aphasia Battery Revised [Time frame: Baseline and within 2 weeks of treatment completion (~10 weeks from study onset)]
- Philadelphia Naming Test (Short) [Time frame: Baseline and within 2 weeks of treatment completion (~10 weeks from study onset)]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- fluent and literate in English prior to stroke
- 1st ever stroke
- more than 3 months post-stroke
- post-stroke reading deficits, defined as reading aloud accuracy <83% for single words or <65% for readable nonwords
- living within a 50-mile radius from Kessler Foundation.
Exclusion criteria
- contraindication to MRI
- prior neurological disease
- developmental learning or reading disability (i.e., developmental dyslexia)
- contraindication to exercise
- concurrent speech and language therapy
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: No
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Triple blind
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
Study locations
United States · 1 center
- Kessler Foundation — West Orange
Identifiers
NCT: NCT06213272 · R-1242-23