BROMOCRIPTINE TREATMENT OF NONFLUENT APHASIA

Two patients with nonfluent aphasia, secondary to stroke, of more than 18 months' duration, were started on bromocriptine to determine its effect on speech fluency. The first patient showed some improvement in fluency at 10 mg and marked improvement at 30 mg; he increased from a mean length of 3.19 words to 4.23 words per utterance. The second patient improved at 10 mg, got worse at 30 mg, and improved again at 10 mg, he increased from a mean length of 2.82 words to 4.77 words per utterance at 10 mg, decreased to 3.08 words at 30 mg, and increased again to 4.44 at 10 mg. Functionally, both of the patients, their families, and the hospital staff noticed marked improvement in producing multisyllable words and providing information in sentence form. Our results suggest that bromocriptine may be useful for improving fluency in some chronically nonfluent aphasic patients and that the optimum dose may vary from person to person.