Investigating talk time as an indicator of participation in people with aphasia using the CommFit™ iPhone app as a measurement tool

Synopsis: Individuals with aphasia often experience reduced participation in life roles and social situations. However, there are currently no performance-based measures of communicative participation. This study investigated the use of talk time, measured by the CommFit™ iPhone application, as an indicator of participation in people with aphasia. The primary aim was to:

i) determine if the talk time of people with aphasia was correlated with ICF domains.

Secondary aims were to:

ii) compare the talk time of people with aphasia with age-matched peers.

iii) investigate the variability of talk time over weeks and days of the week.

Twelve people with aphasia and 7 controls were recruited for the study. They were required to use CommFit™ to track their talking time for 6 hours/day for 14 days. Participants had a mixture of aphasia severity, age, gender and time post-onset. Participants with aphasia were assessed using the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised (WAB-R; impairment), the Communicative Activities of Daily Living-2 (CADL-2; activity limitation), and the Subjective Index of Physical and Social Outcome (SIPSO; participation restriction). Talk time of people with aphasia was correlated positively with WAB-R score only (r = 0.648, p = 0.015). Participants with aphasia talked an average of 4.6 min/hour (SD = 1.6). Healthy participants talked more than the aphasic group, with a mean of 8.4 min/hour (SD = 3.7), however this difference was not significant (p = 0.056). Mean talk time was higher on Saturdays, with no significant difference between other days, or each week. These results indicate that talk time may have applications as an indicator of participation for aphasia.