Assessing Health Related Quality of Life, Language Impairment, and Psychosocial Factors in Post-Stroke Aphasia

Aphasia, an impairment of language comprehension and production typically due to an acquired brain injury or stroke, has been shown to negatively impact an individual’s quality of life (Hilari, Needle, & Harrison, 2012). It has also been shown that people with aphasia (PWA) have an increased risk of developing depression (Kauhanen et al., 2000). There are few current assessments or screening tools which focus on depression in aphasia and the relationship between mood disorders and prognosis for language recovery. This type of screening tool is critical to identify a PWA’s susceptibility for depression because depression elongates and/or prevents language recovery (Hackett & Anderson, 2005). To develop a more patient-centered quality of life screening measure, a focus group with PWA was planned. Participants would have been asked questions on their health-related quality of life based on physical, psychosocial and language impairment influences, and shared their opinions on what most impacted their quality of life post-stroke. Based on this information, questions were planned to be implemented as part of a brief quality of life screening tool specific to stroke survivors with aphasia. It is hoped that this screening tool will be used by speech-language pathologists to refer stroke survivors with aphasia to the correct mental health services as early as possible in the recovery process