Language Disorders in Huntington Disease: A Systematic Literature Review

Area of Science:

• Neurolinguistics
• Neurodegenerative Diseases
• Clinical Linguistics

Background:

• Huntington disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder.
• HD presents with motor, psychiatric, and cognitive symptoms.
• Communication deficits in HD may stem from dysarthria and language impairment, though the latter is poorly defined.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review the literature on language disorders in Huntington disease.
• To characterize the nature and presence of language impairments associated with HD.

Main Methods:

• Systematic review of studies from PubMed and PsycINFO databases.
• Inclusion criteria: original language articles, peer-reviewed, specific to language/communication disorders in HD.
• Thirty-one articles were selected for analysis.

Main Results:

• Most studies indicate primary language deficits in individuals with HD.
• Specific deficits include difficulties in sentence/discourse production and comprehension, semantic processing, lexical retrieval, and grammar application.
• Disagreement exists regarding the impact of HD on reading, sentence production, and specific grammatical rule application.

Conclusions:

• Individuals with Huntington disease exhibit language impairments.
• Further research is required to elucidate the functional origin of these language deficits.
• Clinical studies are needed to assess the impact on daily communication and disease progression.