New software Reacts to aid stroke victims

A COMPUTER program has been developed in Edinburgh which could help millions of stroke patients across the world.

The device retrains around 20 per cent of sufferers in communications skills, allowing them to understand speech and regain activity in certain areas of the brain.

Trials are set to begin on Lothians patients and will last three years.

Experts behind the React2 system are optimistic those tests will show significant progress in victims and the product could eventually be used across the globe.

The trials are the result of a number of organisations coming together at the Western General's Brain Imaging Research Centre.

Although the number of people suffering strokes in the Lothians is decreasing, thanks to growing awareness, it still remains a problem.

Roughly 500 people a year die but many more have to live with the consequences of ill health. It is the one-in-five who struggle to understand speech who will benefit from the new laptop computer which will be specifically programmed to help patients with speech and language therapy.

Project leader Anna Jones, a PhD student at Edinburgh University, is about to start the recruitment process for volunteers from across hospitals in the city.

She said: "For the people involved in the trial their main impairment will be understanding the spoken word, and that is a common problem. It will be geared to the person involved, so the software can start at a very basic level or a higher one."

Initial stages of the program involve three simple objects appearing on the screen, with a computerised voice reading out the name of one. The user then touches the screen to select what they just heard, and will be marked by the computer.

For those suffering severe symptoms they will begin at the lowest level, but the challenges increase to varying levels, reaching scenarios where a complex passage is read out, with links then put up on the screen.

Ms Jones said: "The plan is for them to do this for 45 minutes a day, every day. It's quite intensive, and more than they would get from a speech and language therapist. But this doesn't replace that therapy, it is to go with it.The patient can take the computer home, and it is something to stimulate their recovery every day."

Although there would be an initial outlay in cash for NHS boards in buying the machines - developed by local firm Propeller in conjunction with the non-profit group Interface - it is thought long-term savings would be significant.

Propeller's managing director Dean Turnbull said: "It could save people time and money, instead of coming into hospital they can have their progress managed from these devices."

The machines record the results as the patient goes through the testing and the results are fed back to clinicians who can monitor progress.