| Literature DB >> 23673997 |
C Azuar1, A Leger, C Arbizu, F Henry-Amar, S Chomel-Guillaume, Y Samson.
Abstract
The Aphasia Rapid Test (ART) is a 26-point scale developed as a bedside assessment to rate aphasia severity in acute stroke patients in <3 min. We tested its inter-rater reproducibility, its sensitivity to detect changes from Day 1 to Day 8, and the predictive value of D8 ART scores on the 3-month aphasia outcome assessed with the Aphasia Handicap Score (AHS), a 0-5 "Rankin-like" score for aphasic disability. The reproducibility was tested in 91 aphasic patients within one week of stroke onset. The inter-rater concordance coefficient was 0.99 and the weighted Kappa value (κw) was 0.93. The sensitivity was tested in 70 aphasic patients by measuring changes in ART values between D1 and D8. Improvement occurred in 46 patients (66 %) and aggravation in three patients (4 %). In these patients, a logistic regression analysis showed that D8 ART was the only significant predictor of good (AHS 0-2) or poor (AHS 4-5) outcome. The ROC curves analyzes showed areas under the curve above 0.9 for good and poor outcome and revealed D8 ART best cut-off values of <12 for good and >21 for poor outcome, with more than 90 % sensitivity and 80 % specificity. The ART is a simple, rapid and reproducible language task, useful in monitoring early aphasic changes in acute stroke patients and highly predictive of the 3-month verbal communication outcome. It should be easy to adapt to other languages.Entities:
Mesh:
Year: 2013 PMID: 23673997 PMCID: PMC3734736 DOI: 10.1007/s00415-013-6943-x
Source DB: PubMed Journal: J Neurol ISSN: 0340-5354 Impact factor: 4.849
Instructions and scoring system for the Aphasia Rapid Test
| Instructions | Score |
|---|---|
1a. Execution of simple orders:
| 0 = performs both tasks correctly. 1 = performs one task correctly. 2 = performs neither task correctly. |
1b. Execution of a complex order:
| 0 = performs the task in less than 10 s. 1 = performs the task in more than 10 s or requires the order to be repeated. 2 = performs the task partially: moves the hand across the median line or performs the task on the wrong side. 3 = does not perform the task: does not move the hand across the median line or does not move at all. |
2. Repetition of words: 2a. 2b. 2c. | Each word scores from 0 to 2 (total 0-6), as follows: 0 = normal repetition. 1 = abnormal repetition but the word is correct and recognizable by the examiner *. 2 = non-repetition or unrecognizable word *.
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3. Repetition of a sentence:
| 0 = normal repetition. 1 = abnormal repetition but the sentence is recognizable by the examiner *. 2 = non-repetition or unrecognizable sentence*.
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4. Object naming: 4a. 4b. 4c. | 0 = normal naming. 1 = abnormal naming but the word is correct and recognizable by the examiner.* 2 = wrong naming or unrecognizable word. *
|
| 5. Scoring of dysarthria : | 0 = normal. 1 = minor dysarthria. 2 = moderate dysarthria: patient can be understood. 3 = severe dysarthria: unintelligible speech. |
6. Verbal semantic fluency task:
| 0 = more than fifteen words. 1 = between eleven and fifteen words. 2 = between six and ten words. 3 = between three and five words. 4 = between zero and two words. |
| Total Score | /26 |
Fig. 1High inter-rater reproducibility of the ART tested in 91 aphasic patients. a ART scores rated on the same day by two independent examiners (Raters 1 and 2) showing a coefficient of concordance of 0.990 and a weighted kappa value of 0.934. b Bland–Altman plot showing that ART reproducibility is stable across all degrees of aphasia severity, with no test–retest effect. Note that a difference of >2 points indicates a significant change in aphasia severity
Weighted kappa value for each item of the ART
| ART items | 1a | 1b | 2a | 2b | 2c | 3 | 4a | 4b | 4c | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weighted kappa | 0.874 | 0.863 | 0.874 | 0.921 | 0.833 | 0.842 | 0.967 | 0.889 | 0.885 | 0.854 | 0.925 |
Fig. 2D0 and D8 ART in patients with good, intermediate and poor 3-month language outcomes. In green, ART values (mean ± SD) at Day 0 and Day 8 in patients with good outcome (n = 33, 47 % of patients). In yellow, ART values in patients with intermediate outcome (n = 22, 31 % of patients). In red, ART values in patients with poor outcome (n = 15, 21 % of patients). A two-way ANOVA shows that group and time effects and the group X time interaction were significant (p < 0.0001)
Fig. 3ROC curves for good (AHS 0–2) and poor (AHS 4–5) 3-month language outcomes. a ROC analysis of D0 (blue curve) and D8 ART scores (red curve) for good outcome (AHS 0–2). The area under the curve (AUC) was significantly larger at D8 (0.926, 95 % CI: 0.838–0.975) than at D0 (0.811, 95 % CI: 0.700–0.895, p = 0.02). A D8 ART value of <12 predicted good outcome with 93.9 % sensitivity and 83.8 % specificity. b ROC analysis of D0 (blue curve) and D8 ART scores (red curve) for poor outcome (AHS 4–5). The AUC was significantly larger at D8 (0.955, 95 % CI: 0.876–0.990) than at D0 (0.766, 95 % CI: 0.650–0.859, p = 0.007). A D8 ART value of >21 predicted poor outcome with 93.3 % sensitivity and 89.1 % specificity
Fig. 4Distribution of 3-month AHS as a function of D8 ART thresholds predicting different language outcomes. The left bar corresponds to patients with a D8 ART score of <12 (n = 38), the right bar to patients with a D8 ART score of >21 (n = 20), and the middle bar to patients with intermediate scores (12–21)