Presenter: Morgan Smith, McKay School of Education, Communication Disorders
Authors: Morgan Smith, Tyson G Harmon, Jack Hoffer, Lindsay Whited
Faculty Advisor: Tyson Harmon, McKay School of Education, Communication Disorders
Institution: Brigham Young University
Background Aphasia is an acquired language disorder, which impairs language and has considerable psychosocial consequences (Parr, 2007; Hilari et al., 2010). Low mood and depression have the potential to substantially affect both the performance of people with aphasia on language tests specifically and their recovery generally (Code & Herrmann, 2003). It is, therefore, important for clinicians to utilize effective screening measures to assess mood in aphasia. Two potential measures of mood that are useful in aphasia are the Dynamic Visual Analog Mood Scales (D-VAMS; Barrows & Thomas, 2018) and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS; Yesavage & Sheikh, 1986). Purpose The purposes of the present study were to (1) identify whether D-VAMS and GDS scores were correlated and (2) compare D-VAMS and GDS scores among participants with and without aphasia. Method Twenty-two participants (13 male, 9 female) who presented with different types and severities of aphasia participated in the study. The mean age of aphasia participants was 54 years. A group of 29 neurologically healthy adult participants (15 male, 14 female) were also included. The mean age of healthy adult participants was 30 years. Results Findings revealed a statistically significant moderate negative correlation between GDS and D-VAMS scores, as well as a statistically significant difference in GDS scores but not D-VAMS scores between participants with and without aphasia. Conclusion The results from the present study suggest that although GDS and D-VAMS scores are moderately correlated, the tests may be measuring related but somewhat different mood constructs. These findings could also suggest that different levels of language processing are required for each test. The clinical implications for screening mood in aphasia are discussed. As this study is ongoing, forthcoming data from future participants will be evaluated for these mood measures and added to the results of this study.