Biomedical subjects

M T Sarno

Publications and source records attributed to M T Sarno.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1988

Language and speech defects.

A review of recent research conducted at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in New York City concerning speech and language deficits in closed head injured patients (CHI). One hundred and twenty-five consecutive admissions of 125 closed head injured post coma patients were administered standardized aphasia tests to determine the presence and nature of verbal deficits. Mean time since injury for the group was 45 weeks. All patients, without exception, evidenced linguistic impairment. The population fell into three relatively equally sized groups: classic aphasia, dysarthria accompanied by linguistic deficits, and "subclinical" aphasic deficits. The study results suggest that linguistic functions are particularly vulnerable in severe head injury. A second study compared aphasia secondary to CVA and CHI. When age and time since onset were controlled, aphasic CHI and CVA patients are more similar than different in linguistic task performance and overall functional communication effectiveness. The results suggest that the therapeutic approaches traditionally implemented with CVA aphasic patients are appropriate for the management of CHI aphasic patients as well.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1986

Characteristics of verbal impairment in closed head injured patients.

One hundred twenty-five closed head injured postcoma patients in a rehabilitation medicine center underwent standardized aphasia tests to determine the presence and nature of verbal deficits. Mean time since injury for the group was 45 weeks. All patients evidenced linguistic impairment which was only apparent on testing, not in conversation. The population fell into three relatively equally sized groups: classic aphasia, dysarthria accompanied by linguistic deficits, and "subclinical" aphasic deficits. No patient with a history of coma after closed head injury was spared defective performance on selected language tasks. The patient groups reflected a severity continuum ranging from aphasia, the most severely impaired group, to the least impaired, the subclinical aphasia group. Further, closed head injured patients with a history of coma who manifest motor speech impairment (dysarthria) also manifest linguistic processing deficits. The study results suggest that linguistic functions are particularly vulnerable in severe head injury.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1985

Gender and recovery from aphasia after stroke.

Moderate and severely impaired poststroke aphasic patients followed in a rehabilitation medicine program were systematically examined initially between 4 and 6 months poststroke and again between one and 2 1/2 years postonset. No gender differences were found on ratings of everyday communication function or certain measures of language, specifically auditory comprehension and the spontaneous generation of spoken words.

Adult↗

PubMed1984

Verbal impairment after closed head injury. Report of a replication study.

This study is a replication of an earlier study published in this journal (Sarno, M. T. The nature of verbal impairment after closed head injury. J. Nerv. Ment. Dis., 1968: 685-692, 1980). Consecutive admissions of 69 closed head injured (CHI) postcoma patients at an average of 1 year post-trauma in a rehabilitation medicine center were examined with standardized aphasia tests. As in the first study, all patients evidenced linguistic impairment which was not necessarily manifest clinically but was apparent on testing. Again the population divided itself into three relatively equally sized groups: those with classical aphasia, those with dysarthria accompanied by linguistic deficits, and those with "subclinical" aphasic deficits. As in the first study, consistency of performance was noted for all groups. For example, dysarthric patients consistently evidenced severe language impairment on at least three out of four linguistic tasks taken from an aphasia test. Also, the major types of aphasia were represented in the aphasia group. This study confirms the observation that all CHI postcoma patients suffer important, disabling verbal changes, however mild or apparent, which persist up to 1 year post-trauma. The findings are considered important for patient management, particularly with respect to social, vocational, and psychological aspects in the chronic stage of recovery.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1983

The functional assessment of verbal impairment.

Standard measures do not generally account for functional communication performance. Traditionally the measures used to assess verbal impairment in the brain-damaged patient generally sample performance under artificial conditions rather than the unforced , voluntary, and habitual utterances which characterize natural language use. An awareness of the potential for functional communication in even the most severely brain-damaged patients requires enlightened medical management. Man is a social being capable of communicating in many ways other than the verbal mode. Under appropriate circumstances, with guidance and encouragement, he can and does accommodate and adjust. Communication assessment must go beyond the restricted information derived from standardized language tests. In practical terms, this means that rehabilitation evaluations must incorporate observations of the aphasic or dysarthric patient in his natural environment as a part of the overall communication assessment or using an established measure of functional communication. It is hard to imagine that a functional philosophy is not universally implemented. The speech pathology literature is a clear case in point.

Aphasia↗

PubMed1981