Background: Despite the potential behavioral and neurological benefits of Mindfulness Meditation (MM), its use in treating stroke related communication disabilities appears to be underexplored. Specifically, aphasia, a language disorder resulting from stroke, may be amenable to the benefits of MM because of the observed attention problems often underlying the language symptoms.
Objective: The current paper presents a case report of an adult with aphasia who was trained in MM.
Method: An adult with aphasia completed a five-day mindfulness training, and was assessed on measures of language, attention, and physiological measures of cortisol and heart rate variability. She completed four assessments: two baseline measures, immediately post training, and one week post training (maintenance).
Results: Overall, changes were observed in both psychophysiological measures (heart rate and heart rate variability) and behavioral measures (word productivity, phrase length, word generation, decreased impulsivity, and increased attention).
Conclusion: Given the psychophysiological and behavioral changes observed in this individual, further exploration of the influence of MM in the treatment of post-stroke aphasia is warranted.
Keywords: Aphasia; attention; cortisol; heart rate; language; meditation; mindfulness.