Martin Lauterbach , Hospital da Luz neurologist, is the author of the Portuguese version of the Aachen Aphasia Test (AAT-P) . This battery was developed in the University of Aachen, in Germany, in 1984, for the standardized diagnosis of aphasia, the planning of speech therapy and the evaluation of its efficacy, which was translated into several languages – namely English, French, Italian and Dutch –, thus being the aphasia evaluation test most used in Europe. Aphasia: Is a central disorder of language, caused in most cases by cerebral vascular accidents , that manifests through dysfunctions in the different components of the language system, from speaking and understanding, to reading and writing. Consequently, it entails deep alterations at personal, family and professional level for patients, who experience difficulty communicating and often serious emotional disorders. The adaptation into Portuguese of the Aachen Aphasia Test was supported by Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) , in the scope of a post-doctoral project, and was recently published by Hogrefe. It has for co-authors Isabel Pavão Martins, Gabriela Leal, José Fonseca and Klaus Willmes. For the Portuguese adaptation of the Aachen Aphasia Test (AAT-P), a sample with a control group comprising 153 healthy individuals was evaluated, and a clinical sample comprising 125 individuals with aphasia, classified in eight aphasic syndromes. This is the first time that publisher Hogrefe implements a diagnostic information system, where – after application and assessment of the test on paper – the diagnostic is run digitally, thus setting aside the consultation of normative charts. Born in Germany, Martin Lauterbach graduated in Medicine by the University of Aachen and has been working in Portugal for 20 years now, as a neurologist and a psychiatrist in the Hospital da Luz units of Lisboa and Oeiras , following many patients with aphasia. His doctoral thesis, in 1998, was developed in the area of neurolinguistics on the reading in people with aphasia. “The adaptation of the Aachen Aphasia Test is important for physicians and speech therapists in Portugal, and the fact of existing in several languages makes it the perfect instrument to follow up bilingual and multilingual patients. Furthermore, by sharing a common instrument of diagnosis, technicians can participate in international studies in the scope of aphasiology”, explains Martin Lauterbach. The system of diagnosis is digitalized, preventing pirate copies of the battery and ensuring that only technicians dully trained can apply it.
