Abstract
We are developing a checklist to evaluate cognitive functions by observing patients’ behavior after strokes. The checklist examines six main items: arousal, inhibition of emotion, attention, memory, reasoning, and self awareness. The checklist has 24 sub-items that are graded on a 4-point scale. We evaluated 59 aphasic patients with moderate to severe hemiparesis at our Kaifukuki rehabilitation hospital at the time of admission and again at discharge. Experienced speech therapists filled out the checklist. Patients’ scores on Raven’s colored progressive matrices correlated significantly with the checklist scores. Factor analyses revealed the first factor to be reasoning and self-awareness, the second factor to be emotion inhibition, and the third factor to be arousal. The first factor, reasoning and self-awareness, was most severely affected in the patients. Inhibition of emotion was less severely affected, followed by arousal. The results of this study demonstrate that our checklist can validly assess the status of cognitive functions in aphasic patients. We speculate that the first cognitive function to recover in aphasic patients is typically arousal, followed by emotional expression, and thereafter, reasoning and self awareness.
