[Dementia. Language and previous intelligence. Review]

Language disorders in patients diagnosed of dementia have been studied by different authors, especially in the last years. Alzheimer type dementia (ATD) causes the greatest damage in language, which is showed in the beginning as an nominal aphasia. Afterwards, ATD patients present a transcortical sensitive aphasia and finally suffer with a complete dumbness or global aphasia. In subcortical dementia (SDC) language functions are relatively kept whereas in vascular dementia (VD) this disorders have a pattern which could be compared with the one that is presented in the pure motor aphasia. In ATD verbal capacities are not disturbed in the same way. Thus, several tests as reading and vocabulary test in a loud voice are relatively resistant to mental damage process and this has been related to previous intellectual level of demented patients. Moreover, this tests are very useful in diagnosis of small dementia.