Effectiveness of speech therapy for aphasic stroke patients. A randomised controlled trial.

Aphasic stroke patients were randomly allocated to either a speech therapy group receiving treatment twice a week for 24 weeks or a no-treatment control group. Patients in both groups improved and there were no significant differences in language recovery between the 104 patients allocated to the treatment group and the 87 allocated to the no-treatment group. This treatment regimen, which is representative of clinical practice, is ineffective for most aphasic stroke patients.