ESO-WSO 2020 Joint Meeting Abstracts

Background And Aims: Between 1,200 – 1,400 people in Cyprus experience a stroke every year. \nAphasia, a communication breakdown because of stroke, affects 30% of stroke survivors. Aphasia \nimpacts comprehension and production of spoken and/or written language and is linked to poorer \nfunctional recovery, activities of daily living, depression & social isolation after stroke. The Aphasia \nCommunication Team – TACT aims to provide stroke survivors support for learning and communication \nopportunities to promote living well with aphasia. \nMethods: The Cyprus Stroke Association recruits stroke survivors and TACT is held at the premises \nof the Rehabilitation Clinic of the Cyprus University of Technology. Groups consist of six stroke \nsurvivors with chronic aphasia and six communication buddies. Group members are assessed on \npsychometric measures based on the I-PRAISE protocol. Group members share experiences by \nusing technology/tablets and total communication approach. The main topics of discussion are \nstroke and aphasia, linking the information to members own experiences and discussing living \nwith aphasia. \nResults: Outcomes consist of variations in measures of functional communication, overall severity of \nlanguage impairment from baseline, self-rating and quality of life after stroke. Data gathered are digitalized \nfor each group member based of the RELEASE protocol. \nConclusions: The use of the communication buddy system, the involvement of the total communication \napproach, the systematic assessment and the collection of individual patient data will enable us to \nmeasure the effectiveness and efficacy of group therapy interventions for stroke survivors with chronic \naphasia in terms of use of functional communication, social inclusion and quality of life.