Efficacy of rTMS in Post-Stroke Bilingual Aphasia: A Single Case Experimental Design.
Ioanna-Prodromia Siklafidou, Sophie Arheix-Parras, Solene Hameau et al.
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Case in brief
A French-English bilingual woman with chronic post-stroke aphasia affecting both her first and second languages completed picture-naming tasks three times weekly during a six-week single-case experimental study. Inhibitory continuous theta-burst rTMS was applied to the right lip motor cortex during the intervention phase. Naming accuracy improved in both languages, with visual analysis showing gains in cognate and non-cognate naming and overall language accuracy. Improvements were most marked in phonology, overall accuracy, and pathological language switching. The authors noted that language recovery may vary between languages and that further studies are needed.
What made this case unusual
The intervention targeted the right lip motor cortex, yet improvement was reported in naming accuracy in both languages and in pathological language switching in this bilingual participant.
Diagnostic / clinical pearl
In bilingual post-stroke aphasia, assess naming and language switching in both languages; this single-case study found improvement in both after rTMS, but does not establish efficacy beyond this participant.