Assessment of Cortical Stimulation Combined With Rehabilitation to Enhance Recovery in Broca's Aphasia.

September 19, 2007 updated by: Northstar Neuroscience

Assessment of the Safety and Effectiveness of Targeted Sub-Threshold Epidural Cortical Stimulation Delivered Concurrent With Speech-Language Rehabilitation to Enhance Recovery in Patients Suffering From Broca's Aphasia, Following a Stroke.

The primary objective of this feasibility study is to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of targeted sub-threshold epidural cortical stimulation delivered concurrent with speech-language rehabilitation activities to enhance recovery in study subjects suffering from Broca's aphasia (the inability to speak or to organize the muscular movements for speech), following a stroke.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Stroke is the third leading cause of death and the most common cause of disability in the United States. According to the American Stroke Association, the prevalence of stroke in the U.S. is approximately 4.8 million with approximately 700,000 additional strokes occurring annually. Approximately 150,000 to 250,000 stroke survivors becoming severely and permanently disabled each year.

A common neurological deficit among these stroke survivors, and thus a substantial contributor to post-stroke disability is Broca's aphasia, a condition in which the patient is unable to speak normally, as they cannot effectively organize the muscular movements required for speech. Broca's aphasia is often referred to as "non-fluent" or "motor" aphasia as essentially the patient has impaired motor abilities for speech and thus, become non-fluent in speech/language. The loss of speech for these patients is extremely debilitating and has enormous social and economic impact to the quality of life for these patients. Presently, the only treatment available for patients with Broca's aphasia is speech-language rehabilitation. However, with rehabilitation only, many patients achieve a less than satisfactory improvement in speech-language function and thus, are left with significant disability.

Since Broca's aphasia is largely due to an impairment of language-related motor function, researchers and clinicians believe it is very likely that cortical stimulation in conjunction with speech rehabilitation may also enhance recovery of language motor function for Broca's aphasia patients. This study proposes to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of such cortical electrical stimulation in study subjects with Broca's aphasia after stroke, delivered concurrent with speech-language rehabilitation.

In addition to evaluating changes from baseline level, safety and efficacy measures will be compared to patients who undergo the same speech-language rehabilitation activities but without cortical stimulation. The two study groups will be compared to determine the degree to which the aphasia can be improved beyond rehabilitation alone by epidural stimulation of a targeted cortical region.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment

8

Phase

  • Phase 1

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Illinois
      • Chicago, Illinois, United States, 60611
        • Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
      • Chicago, Illinois, United States, 60637
        • Univ. of Chicago

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

21 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Subjects must have an ischemic stroke.
  • Subjects must have a language dominant left hemisphere.
  • Subjects must be diagnosed as having predominantly Broca's aphasia.
  • Age 21 years or older.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Primary hemorrhagic stroke.
  • Any additional stroke associated with incomplete speech recovery.
  • Any neurologic or physical condition that impairs speech function.
  • History of seizure disorder.
  • Global aphasia or inability to participate in routine speech therapy.
  • Untreated or inadequately treated depression.
  • History of traumatic brain injury, or spontaneous subdural or epidural hematoma that has resulted in a fixed (stable) speech-language deficit.
  • Major active psychiatric illness that may interfere with required study procedures.
  • Contraindication to magnetic resonance (MR) imaging.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Aphasia Quotient on the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB-AQ) at follow-up week 1
Measures of speech rate obtained from Language Sample Analysis at follow-up week 1

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Serious Adverse Event rate at follow-up weeks 1, 6 & 12-week
Aphasia Quotient on the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB-AQ) at follow-up weeks 6 & 12
Measures of speech rate obtained from Language Sample Analysis at follow-up weeks 6 & 12

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Northstar Neuroscience

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

December 1, 2004

Study Completion (Actual)

September 1, 2007

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 12, 2005

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 12, 2005

First Posted (Estimate)

September 15, 2005

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

September 21, 2007

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 19, 2007

Last Verified

September 1, 2007

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • V0325

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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