What people with aphasia and their families want from communication partner training
What did the researchers aim to find out?
We wanted to know:
What people with aphasia and their families want to get out of communication training.
What speech and language therapists expect to acheive with communication training.
What type of research was done?
We asked people what they wanted or expected.
We used consensus methods to find out what they agreed on.
Results of the research
Communcation partner training should improve:
'Conversation' and 'thoughts and feelings'. This was very inmportant to people with aphasia, family members and speech therapists
'Relationships'. This was very important to family members and speech therpaists thought it was likely to improve
'Talking'. This was very important to people with aphasia. Speech therapists were not sure if this would change.
Why was the research done?
The research was done to understand:
1) What a new conversation partner training programme should aim to improve
2) What to measure to know whether the training helps
What does the research mean for me and others?
You know how communication partner training could help you.
Speech therapists know what you want from communication partner training.
What research methods were used?
The research used consensus methods to see what people agreed was important.
1) 5 groups of people with aphasia
2) 2 groups of family members
3) Online surveys of speech therapists and researchers - 3 rounds
How to obtain the treatment detailed in the research?
Your speech and language therapist could give you communication partner training.
This research will help them know what to try and acheive.
Our next piece of research will help them know what is best to do in communication partner training.
Background information on the research topic
Communication partner training helps people with aphasia and their family members communicate better together. We think communication partner training works.
But...
There is no strong evidence.
There is no detail of how to do it.
This research helps prepare for making a new communication partner training with instructions
It also helps us know how to measure whether it works
Risks related to the research
There were few risks from this research.
The discussion groups may have made some people feel tired.
Who was allowed to take part in the research?
People with aphasia from stroke
Family members of people with aphasia
Speech therapists who have provided commununication partner training
Researchers in communication partner training
Information about the people who took part
20 people with mild to severe aphasia took part.
10 family members took part.
16 speech and language therapists took part. They had all provided communcation partner training.
12 communication partner training researchers took part.
Why was the research done this way?
We wanted to know what people with aphasia, family and speech therapists thought.
When was the research done?
2022
Where was the research done?
Sheffield and London
Where did the money come from?
National Institute of Healthcare Research
Problems with the research
We did not find out whether the people with aphasia had ever had communication partner training
Is the research trustworthy?
Our patient and public involvement group helped us understand what the groups said.
We described what we found in the words people with aphasia and family members used.
These steps made sure the findings represented what people told us.
Next steps
We will make a new communication partner training.
It will be called Aphasia Partnership Training.
It will aim to improve:
-communication
- thoughts and feelings
- relationships
- talking
We will measure these things to see if it works.
Where to find information related to the research?
You can find out more about the first APT project here:
https://blogs.city.ac.uk/theaptproject
You can find out about the big APT project here:
