Abstract
We retrospectively analyzed the improvement of word finding difficulty during the acute stage in 45 post-stroke aphasic patients. The results in the object naming (No. 5) were compared to those in the other subtests of the Standard Language Test of Aphasia (SLTA). We investigated factors that may have a relation with the improvement of word finding by analyzing three patients who had severe difficulties in word finding, namely severe aphasia at the first assessment. The results were as follows: (1) The improvement rate of the object naming was correlated with that of the description of behaviors (No. 7), oral command (No. 3) and written command (No. 18) among the subtests in SLTA. (2) The improvement rate of the object naming had no relationships with age, causes of stroke, type of aphasia and lesion size of infarct. (3) Patients who had large infarct and severe word finding difficulty on acute stage, were occasionally accompanied with very good improvement. (4) The remarkable improvement was observed in patients whose lesion did not involve the language areas.
