Clinical research on therapeutic effect of virtual reality technology on Broca Aphasia patients

Objective: To explore the therapeutic effect of virtual reality technology on speech function of Broca Aphasia patients after stroke. Method: Eighteen patients with stroke were enrolled in the Rehabilitation Medicine Department, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University from December 2016 to August 2017. The patients were divided into observation group and control group by random number table. Both groups were trained in speech function. The observation group received regular speech training for 20 minutes per day, Virtual Reality (VR) training for 20 minutes per day; the control group was given conventional speech training 40 minutes per day but the same training content with the observation group. And both groups of patients were treated for 5 days per week lasting for 4 weeks. CRRCAE was used to evaluate the language ability before and after treatment. The Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination, BDAE was used to assess the severity of aphasia. Bucco-facial-apraxia and speech apraxia Methods were used to assess the patient's state of bucco facial function and speech function. Result: There was no significant difference (P > 0.5) between the situations of two groups in general data, bucco-facial-apraxia and speech apraxia. Before treatment, the difference in CRRCAE and BDAE between the two groups is also not so big(P > 0.05). After 4 weeks of treatment, the severity of aphasia was improved in both groups (P < 0.05). Except computing ability, listening comprehension, repetition, expression, readout, reading, transcription, depiction and dictation were all improved (P < 0.01). And in noun repetition(P = 0.03), sentence repetition (P = 0.01), noun expression(P < 0.01), verb expression (P = 0.02), sentence expression (P < 0.01), comic expression (P = 0.01), enumeration (P = 0.03), verb readout(P = 0.04), verb reading(P < 0.01), sentence reading (P = 0.04), noun transcription (P = 0.02), sentence transcription (P = 0.048), verb depiction (P = 0.01) and so on, language ability of the observation group is significantly better than the control group. Conclusion: Virtual reality technology combined with speech function training can improve the language ability of patients with Broca Aphasia, and its improvement is better than the simple speech function training.