Abstract
The Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS) was developed as a systematic
way to describe rehabilitation treatments for the purpose of both research and practice.
The RTSS groups treatments by type and describes them by 3 elements: the treatment
(1) ingredients and (2) the mechanisms of action that yield changes in the (3) target
behavior. Adopting the RTSS has the potential to improve consistency in research,
allowing for better cross-study comparisons to strengthen the body of research supporting
various treatments. Because it is still early in its development, the RTSS has not
yet been widely implemented across different rehabilitation disciplines. In particular,
aphasia recovery is one area of rehabilitation that could benefit from a unifying
framework. Accordingly, this article is part of a series where we illustrate how the
RTSS can be applied to aphasia treatment and research. This article more specifically
focuses on examining the neurobiological mechanisms of action associated with experimental
aphasia therapies, including brain stimulation and pharmacologic intervention, as
well as more traditional behavioral therapy. Key elements of the RTSS are described,
and 4 example studies are used to illustrate how the RTSS can be implemented. The
benefits of a unifying framework for the future of aphasia treatment research and
practice are discussed.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
AAT (Aachen Aphasia Test), CETI (Communicative Effectiveness Index), CIAT (constraint-induced aphasia therapy), MOA (mechanism of action), rTMS (repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation), RTSS (Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System), tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation), WAB (Western Aphasia Battery)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 05, 2021
Accepted:
October 4,
2021
Received in revised form:
August 25,
2021
Received:
March 12,
2021
Footnotes
Disclosures: none
Identification
Copyright
© 2021 The American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
