Complementary and alternative medical approaches to treating adult neurogenic communication disorders: a review.

Abstract

This paper reviews studies investigating the effectiveness of treating adult neurogenic communication disorders with complementary and alternative medicines (CAM). CAM is gradually experiencing recognition as a viable treatment approach for a variety of disorders by practitioners and patients. Some patients are using CAM as an adjunct to traditional rehabilitation. Additionally, speech-language pathologists are increasingly using CAM in treating communication disorders. This review provides a description of various CAM techniques including acupuncture, hypnosis, relaxation training, dreamwork, biofeedback and homeopathy/herbal medicine. Investigations exploring the effectiveness of each of these approaches as they have been applied to aphasia, motor speech disorders, and cognitive impairments are discussed. Little scientific inquiry into the effectiveness of CAM in the treatment of aphasia, motor speech disorders, and cognitive impairments has occurred. Many of the reviewed studies demonstrate inconsistent results; use limited sample sizes; do not include quantitative measures of cognitive, linguistic or motor speech skills; and are poorly reported. This review suggests that further exploration of this area is required before any strong conclusions regarding effectiveness and efficacy of these techniques can be made.