Evaluación y tratamiento de la afasia en personas bilingües vascas: análisis de la situación actual en el País Vasco

Introduction: in bilingual people suffering from aphasia, language problems do not always appear in all the patient's languages, so it is essential to study all the different languages spoken by the patient. In the Basque Country, 28.4% of the population is bilingual (they speak Basque language and Spanish or French). Despite of that, there are only few tools available to assess aphasia in Basque, and we do not know the way aphasia is evaluated in Basque in clinical practice. It is necessary to define this situation, in order to find out the need for improvement in aphasia assessment tools; and to try to guess the role that the standardization of the CAT tool in Basque language (which is currently being carried) would play. Objectives: the aim of this paper was to study how aphasia is assessed in Basque bilingual people in the Basque Country. We wanted to study the importance given to language in the clinical approach of aphasia. Finally, we wanted to evaluate the need for more standardized tools to assess aphasia in Basque. Methodology: a transversal study was carried out in March 2019. Professionals from different areas that assess aphasia in the Basque Country were asked using an online questionnaire consisting of anonymous questions. Results: 77 people answered the questionnaire. Most of the professionals were speech therapists (57%) and 70% could speak Basque. 62% of them treated bilingual patients in both of the languages spoken by them. In most of the cases (90%) the Basque assessment was carried out in a cualitative / informal way, or using tests translated by the professionals on their own. 98,5% of professionals noted the need for more tools to assess aphasia in Basque. Conclusions: patients with Basque are usually assessed in two languages, but the quality of this assessment is poor (because they use their own translations for Basque assessment or they do it in an informal way).  Therefore, professionals note the need for more standardized tests to assess aphasia in Basque. They find the adaptation of the CAT tool interesting.