Bromocriptine treatment of nonfluent aphasia.

Abstract

Using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design, we studied the effect of bromocriptine (15 mg daily) in 20 men with chronic nonfluent aphasia. The study was conducted over a 28-week period in two phases. In phase I, the patients received either bromocriptine or placebo; in phase II the treatments were crossed over. We evaluated each patient's language and nonverbal cognitive skills at the beginning and end of each phase and 6 weeks after completion of phase II. When compared with placebo treatment, bromocriptine did not significantly improve the patient's speech fluency, language content, overall degree of aphasia severity, or nonverbal cognitive abilities. Based on these results, bromocriptine is not recommended as monotherapy for the treatment of chronic nonfluent aphasia.