Background and Aim: Fluent aphasia and Alzheimer patients have difficulties in perception and naming. Patient with fluent Aphasia and Alzheimer disease, both have difficulty in perception and naming. Their site of lesion is also identical, that is temporoparietal lobe which is damaged in both group. This study investigates the effects of semantic and phonological cues in facilitation of word finding.
Materials and Methods: The study was prescriptive - analytic cross-sectional with 14 patients. The participants were seven fluent aphasia with mean age 48.4 year old and seven Alzheimer patients with mean age 69/71 year old and mean Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) 16 score. Those were assessed with Persian Naming Test. The Aphasic patients were selected from Tehran University hospitals and Alzheimer ones were from Rouzbeh hospital and Alzheimer Association of Iran.
Results: Mean semantic and phonological cues in fluent aphasia patients were 2.71 and 12.29, respectively, which significantly different (p=0.01), but those results were 8.29 and 3.43 in Alzheimer patients, that were not significantly different (p>0.05). A main result of this study was significant difference between two cues in both groups.
Conclusion: Two groups of patients use two cues in word finding. The correct responses increase with phonological cue in fluent aphasia but semantic cue has the main role for naming in Alzheimer patients.

Background and Aim: Aphasia, after stroke in the left hemisphere, is a common symptom. These patients often experience incomplete recovery despite intensive speech therapy. Direct electrical stimulation of the brain is a technique to stimulate the brain in patients with neurological and psychiatric diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of this stimulation on recovery of naming ability, working memory, and aphasia quotient and the lasting duration in patients with non-fluent aphasia.

Methods: In this interventional study, 10 patients with after-stroke non-fluent aphasia were enrolled. Their aphasia quotient, working memory and naming ability scores were compared before and after sham and real treatments and two months after the real treatment. 10 sessions of 20-minutes sham electrical stimulation and 10 sessions of 20-minutes anodic and cathodic stimulation (2 mA) at the dorsal lateral perifrontal cortex was done for each patient. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA and Friedman nonparametric tests.

Results: The ability of naming and working memory scores were increased significantly after treatment and two months after it compared with before study and after sham treatment (p<0.05 for all). There was no significant improvement in aphasia quotient.

Conclusion: The transcranial direct current stimulation can sustain improvement in naming function and working memory in patients with non-fluent aphasia. It can be used in the rehabilitation program of these patients.