Profiling spontaneous speech decline in Alzheimer's disease: a longitudinal study

Area of Science:

• Neurolinguistics
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Geriatric Medicine

Background:

• Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder.
• Speech impairment is a common but not fully understood symptom of AD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To document the nature and progression of spontaneous speech impairment in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients.
• To analyze speech changes over a 12-month period using cross-sectional and longitudinal designs.

Main Methods:

• Thirty-one mild-moderate AD patients and 30 controls completed oral description tasks at baseline.
• AD patients underwent follow-up assessments at 6 and 12 months.

Main Results:

• AD patients showed more word-finding delays, semantic errors, and simpler speech compared to controls.
• Phonological errors increased in AD patients over the 12-month follow-up period.

Conclusions:

• Alzheimer's disease (AD) speech impairment is initially dominated by semantic errors.
• Phonological aspects of speech deteriorate over time in AD patients.