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Which language domains are assessed the most often in the first year after brain tumor surgery in Europe? Towards a (Neuro)psychological Toolbox for Brain Surgery Aftercare
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Poster E54 in Poster Session E, Thursday, October 26, 10:15 am - 12:00 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
Claudia Penaloza1*, Joanna Sierpowska1,2*, Vitória Piai2,3; 1Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit, Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, Institute of Neurociences, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 2Radboud University, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 3Radboud University Medical Center, Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour, Department of Medical Psychology, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 4*Both authors contributed equally to this work
[Objective] Surgery for brain tumor removal compromises a person´s physical, cognitive, and psychological health and requires multidimensional aftercare planning. Here we extend our previous report surveying the character and frequency of post-surgical assessments and interventions (Sierpowska et al., 2022), by examining the specific language domains covered by these assessments. The ultimate applied goal of this research line is to build a proposal for an optimal language and (neuro)psychological assessment toolbox in brain surgery aftercare. [Participants and Methods] Healthcare professional teams from 38 institutions in 15 European countries completed an online survey inquiring about the methods they use for speech and language and (neuro)psychological postoperative assessments at their institutions. Additionally, we specified five time points at which these assessments are usually performed: (1) bedside = 1-10 days after surgery, (2) acute stage of recovery = 11-60 days, (3) early recovery = 2-5 months, (4) late recovery = 5-12 months, and (5) long term = 1 year after surgery. Participants could select the language test/domain from proposed options (e.g. Boston Naming Test, semantic fluency, verb generation) and/or add their own suggestions in a free-text manner. Quantitative results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and comments were interpreted and summarized qualitatively. [Results] For analyses reported here, we first grouped all timepoints together. We considered that centers have a preference for a specific domain when minimally 80% of responding centers assess it. Data showed that, overall and in terms of language and speech (which is offered by 30/38 surveyed European centers), there exists a preference for assessing spontaneous speech, comprehension, phonological and semantic fluency, and object naming. When analysing timepoints separately, we could observe that more than 80% of institutions built their protocols centered on these specific tests/domains: (1) spontaneous speech - bedside (20/22), acute (5/5), early recovery (19/21), late recovery (10/10), long term (15/15); (2) interview - (acute 4/5), early (18/21), late recovery (10/10), long term (15/15), object naming - bedside (18/22), acute (5/5), early (17/21), late (10/10), long (14/15), comprehension - acute (5/5), early (17/21), late recovery (9/10), long term (13/15), phonological fluency - acute (5/5), late recovery (9/10), long term (13/15), semantic fluency - acute (5/5), early (17/21), late (10/10), long term (15/15), reading & writing (acute 5/5), late recovery, (10/10), semantic matching (acute 4/5), late (8/10), orophonatory praxis (acute 4/5), repetition (words and nonwords) (acute 4/5), action naming (acute 4/5). [Conclusions] This study reports on the most common language domains assessed during the first year of recovery after brain tumor removal and at long term (12 or more months after surgery). This information will be further used to propose a neuropsychological toolbox for medical professionals working with individuals after brain surgery. There, we will provide practical information about each task structure and usage, and approximate assessment time. It will be organized in a manner that allows institutions to either build a new protocol from scratch or to expand on an existing one in a flexible manner (e.g., to accommodate time constraints, language-specific availability of tests, and/or individual patients’ needs).
Topic Areas: Disorders: Acquired, Speech-Language Treatment