Discussion
aphasia, anomia
RECRUITMENT
The primary purpose of the present study was to demonstrate immediate and long-term response to evidence-based anomia treatment and investigate the association of several potential prognostic factors and aphasia therapy outcome. To address this aim, we used data from the recently completed POLAR trial. Major components of the POLAR protocol were described in detail, including its purpose, recruitment, assessments, and therapy tasks. Briefly, we found that participants showed substantial average improvement in naming performance immediately after therapy and at follow-up assessments 1 month and 6 months after therapy. Nonetheless, considerable variability in therapy response was observed at the individual level. Aphasia severity was found to be strongly associated with naming outcomes at all time points. Participants with mild and moderate aphasia showed greatest naming recovery, whereas those with severe or very severe aphasia showed little or no response to therapy. Age emerged as a prognostic factor for outcomes at 1 month and at 6 months, and TPO similarly improved prediction accuracy for naming improvement 6 months after therapy. The implications of these findings are discussed in detail below.