title: Comparison of emotional and non-emotional word repetitions in patients with aphasia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Aphasia is a language disorder caused by left hemisphere damage. For treatment of aphasia, in some of therapeutic approaches, the right hemisphere (RH) abilities, such as, emotional perception, is used for stimulation of the language process in the left hemisphere. The aim of this study is to investigate emotional word repetition in aphasia after a stroke, in Persian language patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifteen aphasic patients (eleven male and four female) between 45 and 65 (58/4 ± 7/8) years of age, participated in this cross-sectional study. A list of 20 emotional words and a list of 20 neutral words as stimuli were prepared and the patients were asked to repeat each word after five seconds; if a patient needed to repeat a word again, it was repeated for him/her again, and the total score for each subject was calculated. The paired t-test was used to test group mean differences and the significant level was 0.05.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean and standard deviation for emotional word repetitions were 6.93 ± 1.72 and for non-emotional word repetition was 7.10 ± 2.23, and the P value = 0.892, thus, no significant difference between emotional and non-emotional word repetitions was noticed. The mean and standard deviation for the positive emotional word repetitions were 3.53 ± 3.29 and for negative word repetitions were 3.40 ± 3.56, (P = 0.751), with no significant difference between positive and negative emotional word repetitions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Despite the main hypothesis that the right hemisphere is involved in the processing of emotions, it can be stated that both hemispheres are involved in the processing of emotional words, albeit in a different and probably complementary manner.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech Therapy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Jalal
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bakhtiyari
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech Therapy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Seyyed Ahmad Reza
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Khatoonabadi
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech Therapy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Hooshang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Dadgar
authors.affiliation: Department of Performing Arts, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Behrooz Mahmoodi
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Bakhtiari
authors.affiliation: Languages and Linguistics Center, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Parvaneh
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Khosravizadeh
authors.affiliation: Isfahan Neurosciences Research Center, Alzahra Hospital, Department of Neurology, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
authors.forename: Vahid
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Shaygannejad
keywords: Aphasia; emotional word; repetition