Cognitive‑ communication Disorders in Patients with Dementia Due to Alzheimer’s Disease

Czech version

Authors: J. Marková ¹; M. Králová ²; J. Čunderlíková ¹; I. Hrubá ¹; M. Malík ³; S. Šutovský ³; P. Turčáni ³; B. Mészáros-Hideghéty ²; Z. Cséfalvay ¹
Authors‘ workplace: Ústav psychologických a logopedických štúdií, Katedra logopédie, PdF UK v Bratislave ¹; Psychiatrická klinika LF UK a UN Bratislava ²; I. neurologická klinika LF UK a UN Bratislava ³
Published in: Cesk Slov Neurol N 2015; 78/111(5): 536-541
Category: Original Paper

Overview

Purpose:
Our goal was to analyze language processes at a single-word, sentence and text levels in a group of patients with dementia due to Alzheimer´s disease (AD), and to describe the specific language impairments in this population.

Sample and methods:
Seventy-nine patients with AD participated in our study. To evaluate language processes, we used originally developed tests for Slovak language: Picture naming test, selected subtests from the Diagnostics of aphasia, alexia and agraphia language battery, Tests of sentence production, sentence comprehension and language processes at text level.

Results:
Comparison of all patients with different stages of AD with a control group showed significant difference between groups in sentence comprehension (Kruskal-Wallis 50.609; p < 0.001), sentence production (K-W 54.779; p < 0.001) and at text level (K-W 64.313; p < 0.001). The only significant difference found at a single-word level, was that between the control group and patients with severe AD in naming (lexical retrieval of nouns) (Mann-Whitney 22; p < 0.001), and there was a non-significant difference between patients groups and the control group at a single-word comprehension task (K-W 4.506; p = 0.212).

Conclusions:
A single-word comprehension task and the picture naming test are inadequate for early detection of existing higherlevel (sentence, text) language processing impairment in patients with AD-related dementia. Our results show that patients with mild AD perform poorer than matched healthy controls on language tasks at the sentence and text level. Sentences and text require activation of grammatical processes and processes linked to macrostructure and inference building.

Key words:
Alzheimer disease – language disorders – cognitive disorders

The authors declare they have no potential conflicts of interest concerning drugs, products, or services used in the study.

The Editorial Board declares that the manuscript met the ICMJE “uniform requirements” for biomedical papers.

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