Neuropsycholinguistic Profile of Patients Post-Stroke in the Left Hemisphere with Expressive Aphasia

This study investigated the different performance of neuropsycholinguistic profiles in post-stroke patients in the left hemisphere (LH) with expressive aphasia, compared to healthy controls. We used the case-control study design with a sample consisting of 14 Brazilian adult patients (mean age 55.8; SD = 12.5), of both genders, with ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke in the LH and 16 healthy adults (mean age 56; SD = 10.9). All participants underwent neuropsycholinguistic evaluation. Statistically significant differences were found between the clinical group and the control group in the functions of attention, working memory, verbal episodic-semantic memory, constructive praxis, executive functions and expressive language skills.
We concluded that the linguistic and non-linguistic cognitive skills and socio-demographic characteristics of the aphasic patients should be analyzed in detail to
facilitate the development of more effective rehabilitation programs for aphasia.