Browsing by Author "Pohjansuo, Jaana"

Aims of the study. Aphasia is a linguistic-cognitive disorder that occurs after language learning and affects the processing of linguistic knowledge. Measuring the health-related quality of life of people with aphasia is part of evaluating the effectiveness of health care interventions. However, some patients are unable to respond to quality of life surveys on their own due to cognitive or communication disorders. There is a need for proxies to answer for them. Proxies may also respond on behalf of the most severely aphasic patients who would otherwise be excluded from quality of life studies altogether. Often, proxies rate the quality of life of people with aphasia lower than the people themselves. The aim of this study was to investigate whether proxies can reliably answer a quality of life survey on behalf of a person with aphasia. Methods. 12 people with aphasia responded to the Stroke and Aphasia Quality of Life Scale - 39 (SAQOL-39) and named a proxy, 11 of whom responded on behalf of the person with aphasia to the same survey. Their responses were compared using the Wilcoxon signed rank test. In addition, the Spearman rank correlation coefficient test was used to examine whether the communication domain of SAQOL-39 correlates with the overall mean and other domains. Results and conclusions. Assessments of the quality of life of people with aphasia by people with aphasia themselves and their proxies did not differ statistically. No correlation was found between the domain of communication and other domains in the results of people with aphasia. Instead, a correlation was found between all domains in the estimates of proxies. The most significant correlation was found between the communication domain and the psychosocial domain and the overall mean. According to this study, proxies can reliably answer a quality of life survey on behalf of a person with aphasia. However, the data were very small, so the result cannot be generalized. Clinically, a speech language pathologist should ask a proxy to answer a quality of life questionnaire if the person with aphasia is unable to do so on their own. In this way, the effectiveness of speech therapy rehabilitation can be measured.