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Published on: June 25, 2019
Language in Alzheimer's disease
Myron F Weiner1, Katherine E Neubecker, Mary E Bret
1University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390-9129, USA. myron.weiner@utsouthwestern.edu
The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
|May 29, 2008
Summary
Psychiatric language exams help evaluate Alzheimer's disease (AD). Impaired fluency and naming are common in AD, with animal naming useful for tracking disease progression.
Area of Science:
- Neurology
- Psychiatry
- Linguistics
Background:
- Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder.
- Early and accurate diagnosis of AD is crucial for patient management.
- Language deficits are common in AD but their specific utility requires investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the clinical usefulness of psychiatric language assessments in evaluating patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD).
- To correlate specific language measures with cognitive and global impairment in AD patients.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from standardized psychiatric examinations and neuropsychological testing of probable AD patients.
- Assessed variables including articulation, word-finding, fluency (hypo/hyperfluency), repetition, naming (confrontational, semantic), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scale.
- Semantic fluency was quantified by the number of animals named per minute.
Main Results:
- Significant associations were found between MMSE and CDR scores across most language measures (p < .0001).
- Patients with normal language assessments had higher MMSE scores.
- Increased cognitive and global impairment correlated with reduced animal naming capacity.
Conclusions:
- Abnormal articulation and repetition are rare and indicate advanced disease, not useful for early detection.
- Impaired fluency, confrontational naming, and animal naming are prevalent and worsen with disease progression.
- Semantic fluency (animal naming) provides a quantifiable measure for monitoring Alzheimer's disease progression.
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