Assessing Cortisol Reactivity to a Linguistic Task as a Marker of Stress in Individuals With Left-Hemisphere Stroke and Aphasia

Adults with aphasia perceived greater stress than did healthy controls; however, this paradigm did not stimulate salivary cortisol reactivity in the aphasia group. A potential reason for this may be differences in the type or degree of psychosocial variables that are important in modulating stress in this population. Other considerations when developing methods for assessing physiologic stress include habituation and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysregulation related to the neurological changes poststroke.