Abstract
Various speech therapies are available for treating poststroke aphasia; however, the effects of these strategies on poststroke aphasia have yet to be compared. We conducted a systematic review and network meta-analysis to investigate the effects of different speech therapies for patients with poststroke aphasia. We searched the PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library electronic databases from their inception to September 20, 2023. We included trials that (1) involved participants with poststroke aphasia; (2) adopted speech therapy as the intervention; (3) applied either no intervention or another speech therapy as the control treatment; (4) reported speech performance as outcomes. The network meta-analysis was performed using the online tool ShinyNMA (version 1.01). We examined 16 articles involving 775 patients. Our analyses revealed that constraint-induced aphasia therapy (CIAT) prompted significant improvements in speech and motor aphasia performance, whereas computerized speech and language therapy (CSLT) yielded significant improvements in motor aphasia performance. All significant results were also clinically meaningful. No significant inconsistencies were observed between the results of direct and indirect comparisons. Our results suggest CIAT should be the preferred protocol for improving speech performance in patients with poststroke aphasia, with CSLT being a favorable alternative in patients with motor aphasia.