• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.196-202
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• 2002

Aphasia is frequent in stroke patients and most patients with aphasia exhibit spontaneous progressive improvement in language abilities over time, but few recover completely. Neurological variables, especially initial severity of aphasia and time post-onset, appear to have influence on improvement. Effect of speech therapy and pharmacotherapy has been studied and some drugs, like amphetamine are proved to be benefit for recovery of aphasia following stroke. But there has been few evidence to facilitate recovery from aphasia by acupuncture or herbal medication therapy. So we report two cases of aphasic stroke patients who treated by combination therapy of acupuncture, herbal medication(Cheongsinhaeo-tang) and speech therapy over 6 months and improved in language abilities. Further clinical studies will be needed to explore the effects of acupuncture and herbal medication therapy for aphasia. Researchers should examine the long term effect of these treatment, and whether it is more effective than speech therapy and western pharmacotherapy or not..