Speech and language therapy for dysarthria due to non-progressive brain damage

Sellars C, Hughes T, Langhorne P

Published Online:

January 21, 2009

Speech and language therapy treatments for people with dysarthria have not been tested in large clinical trials. Dysarthria is a speech problem which can be caused by a number of brain disorders including conditions such as stroke and head injury. Typical features of dysarthria include slurring of speech and quiet voice volume. Psychological distress is often experienced by people with dysarthria. Speech and language therapists employ a range of treatments to help people with dysarthria. There are no large clinical trials which have tested whether these treatments are effective.

Abstract (click to read)

Background:

Dysarthria is a common sequel of non-progressive brain damage (typically stroke and traumatic brain damage). Impairment-based therapy and a wide variety of compensatory management strategies are undertaken by speech and language therapists with this patient population.

Objectives:

To determine the efficacy of speech and language therapy interventions for adults with dysarthria following non-progressive brain damage.

Search strategy:

We searched the trials registers of the following Cochrane Groups: Stroke, Injuries, Movement Disorders and Infectious Diseases. We also searched the trials register of the Cochrane Rehabilitation and Related Therapies Field. The trials registers were last searched in September 2004. The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library Issue 2, 2004), MEDLINE (1966 to September 2004), EMBASE (1980 to September 2004), CINAHL (1983 to September 2004), PsycINFO (1974 to October 2004), and Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (1983 to December 2004) were searched electronically. We handsearched the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders (1966 to 2005, Issue 1) and selected conference proceedings, and scanned the reference lists of relevant articles. We approached colleagues and speech and language therapy training institutions to identify other possible published and unpublished studies.

Selection criteria:

Unconfounded randomised controlled trials (RCTs).

Data collection and analysis:

One author assessed trial quality. Two co-authors were available to examine any potential trials for possible inclusion in the review.

Main results:

No trials of the required standard were identified.

Authors' conclusions:

There is no evidence of the quality required by this review to support or refute the effectiveness of speech and language therapy interventions for dysarthria following non-progressive brain damage. Despite the recent commencement of a RCT of optimised speech and language therapy for communication difficulties after stroke, there continues to be an urgent need for good quality research in this area.

This record should be cited as:

Sellars C, Hughes T, Langhorne P. Speech and language therapy for dysarthria due to non-progressive brain damage. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2005, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD002088. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD002088.pub2

Assessed as up to date:

February 4, 2005

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Primary Review Group:

Stroke Group

Health topics:

Heart & circulation > Stroke > Prevention & treatment of complications

Neurology > Stroke > Prevention & treatment of complications

Cochrane Summaries^beta

Independent high-quality evidence for health care decision making

Speech and language therapy for dysarthria due to non-progressive brain damage

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