Effectiveness of transcranial magnetic stimulation in patients with aphasia following ischemic stroke
Keywords:
transcranial magnetic stimulation and aphasia; post-ischemic stroke , aphasia and transcranial magnetotherapyAbstract
Introduction: Stroke is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. In Cuba, the death rate from cerebrovascular diseases in 2022 was 102.7 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of transcranial magnetotherapy in language rehabilitation for patients with aphasia following ischemic stroke.
Methods: A quasi-experimental, longitudinal, prospective study was conducted on patients with aphasia following ischemic stroke. The sample consisted of 70 patients selected via consecutive non-probability sampling (February 2023 – February 2025). The degree of aphasia (Boston test) and verbal fluency (verbal fluency test) were assessed one week before and 30 days after the intervention. Transcranial magnetotherapy (frequency: 1 Hz; intensity: 5 Gauss; duration: 20 minutes per session; frequency: daily for 15 sessions) and speech therapy exercises were administered. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used, with a significance level of p < 0.05.
Results: Patients showed improvement in language functions; the prevalence of moderate and severe aphasia decreased from 64.3% to 15.7% after treatment (p < 0.001), while high verbal fluency increased from 0% to 62.8% (p < 0.001). Adverse effects observed included headache and mild, transient nausea (14.3%).
Conclusions: Transcranial magnetotherapy proved to be an effective and safe therapeutic approach for language rehabilitation in patients with aphasia.
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References
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Copyright (c) 2026 Yisel Caymari López, Cristina Guerra Frutos , Yilena de la Caridad Caymari López , Eduardo Gutiérrez Santisteban , Misleidis Salgado Ortiz, Enrique Rafael Caymari Díaz
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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