Effects of music therapy accompanied by transcranial direct current stimulation on the recovery from aphasia following stroke: A single‑center retrospective cohort study

Abstract

Aphasia is the difficulty in reproducing or understanding speech, and affects 21‑38% of patients with stroke immediately after onset. In addition, disregarding improvement in the first weeks after stroke, ~20% of patients present with chronic deficiencies 6 months later. Consequently, speech and language therapy appears to be the optimal choice of treatment for chronic aphasia. The present study aimed to systematically investigate the effects of experimental/traditional music therapy (MT) in combination with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on improving aphasia in patients following a stroke in regular stroke rehabilitation services. For this purpose, 98 eligible participants who had suffered a single cerebrovascular accident were divided into three groups as follows: Group A, no MT or tDCS (only standard treatment); group B, daily MT; group C, combined treatment with daily MT and tDCS at a 1:1.21:1.28 ratio for the three groups, respectively. Statistically significant differences between groups were found either in terms of the interval of the Aachen Aphasia Test [(T1‑T0) mean] (P<0.05) or in terms of the mean cerebral blood flow in the damaged regions (P=0.042), the mean mini‑mental test (P<0.05) and the mean Barthel index (P=0.004). On the whole, the present study demonstrates that following a stroke, recovery from aphasia can by promoted by a regular exercise, training and rehabilitation program, as well as an improved acoustic environment and tDCS.