Hélène Côté

Towards a description of clinical communication impairment profiles following right-hemisphere damage.

Background: It is estimated that approximately 50% of individuals who incur right‐hemisphere damage (RHD) have subsequent communication disorders. Lexical‐semantic, discourse, prosodic, and pragmatic deficits have been reported following RHD, but the co‐occurrence of these deficits within the same individual has not yet been systematically investigated. Therefore clinical profiles of communication impairments in individuals with RHD still have to be identified and described in order to appreciate their communication impairment and provide strategies for rehabilitation. Aims: The goal of the present study was to explore the clinical profiles of communication impairments subsequent to a right hemisphere lesion. Methods and Procedures: A total of 28 French‐speaking individuals with a right‐hemisphere lesion were evaluated using the Protocole MEC (Joanette, Ska, & Côté, 2004), a normalised battery allowing the assessment of communication deficits after RHD. A hierarchical cluster analysis was used to group participants according to similarities in their results on the 14 tasks. Outcomes and Results: Four subgroups of RHD individuals were identified on the basis of the overall similarities of performance on the 14 tasks of the Protocole MEC. Participants in the first cluster showed impairments in all four language components evaluated, whereas the second cluster of participants was also impaired in prosodic, lexical‐semantic, and pragmatic abilities, but was characterised by a relative preservation of discourse abilities. The third cluster of participants did not show any abnormal results. Finally, two individuals were mainly characterised by some lexical‐semantic deficits. Conclusions: The Protocole MEC used in conjunction with a cluster analysis provided a first step towards the identification of communication impairment profiles among the population of individuals with RHD. In the present study it was not possible to clearly identify the relationship between a given profile and factors such as lesion site, age, or education. Incidence of communication impairments was estimated to be higher in a rehabilitation centre setting than the generally accepted 50% in the literature.

Age and education effects on adults’ performance on the Brazilian version of the Montreal Communication Evaluation Battery

Background: Socio-demographic features such as age and education are the strongest influences on cognitive and communicative performance in every culture. However, there are few neuropsychological tests adapted to Brazilian society, culture, and language, especially for evaluating the communication of individuals with right hemisphere damage. Aims: This study was designed to describe age and education effects on the communicative performance of non-brain-damaged Brazilian adults on the Brazilian Montreal Communication Evaluation Battery (MAC Battery), which was created to evaluate components of communication usually overlooked by aphasia tests. Methods & Procedures: The sample was composed of 240 adults, divided into two education and three age groups. The influence of these variables on the Brazilian MAC Battery performance was assessed. Outcomes & Results: Communicative performance is influenced by educational level. Age also partially impacts performance, but to a lesser degree, and there is an interaction between these factors in five tasks. Conclusions: These results are important for the use of this protocol with patients with neurological disorders since education and age will have to be taken into consideration.

Somministrazione e codifica del protocollo MEC

Il capitolo sulla somministrazione e codifica del protocollo MEC e stato realizzato per orientare l’esaminatore1 nelle fasi di somministrazione delle prove, codifica dei risultati e loro interpretazione. e consigliabile leggere questo capitolo prima di valutare il partecipante2 con il Protocollo MEC.