Investigating sentence processing and working memory in patients with mild Alzheimer and elderly people (original) (raw)
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Language use of patients with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease: An analysis of basic sentences
Alzheimer's disease (AD) which is the most common cause of dementia, has two subtypes: early-onset and late-onset AD. Early-onset AD affects people younger than age 65 and memory dysfunction, cognitive impairment, executive dysfunction and language problems are relatively more common on patients with early-onset AD. Based on the language disturbances, the aim of this study is to examine basic sentences of patients with early-onset AD by using four different language tests and to compare all the results with a control group. Considering the power analyses, 23 patients with early-onset AD from Dokuz Eylul University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology and an age/education-matched control group are included in this study. The data were analyzed using t test and Mann-Whitney U test. It was found that patients with early-onset AD used more basic sentences in Random Speech test compared to the control group. The other finding was about the nominal and the verbal sentences. It was revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between the patients with early-onset AD and the control group in terms of nominal sentences in the Picnic Picture description test, Cookie Theft Picture description test and the Story Picture Sequencing test. In terms of verbal sentences, it was found that there was a statistically significant difference between the patients with early-onset Alzheimer's disease and the control group in all language tests. In conclusion, the syntactic ability is preserved in AD. However, working memory problems can make the syntactic processing worse. Due to this process, patients with early-onset AD tend to use basic sentence structures more frequently.
Brain and …, 1998
Two studies explored whether sentence comprehension impairments in Alzheimer's disease (AD) are due to deficits in syntactic processing or memory. Study 1 used a picture-pointing sentence comprehension task to measure the final outcome of comprehension in an off-line fashion. It showed the comprehension of 30 patients with AD to be impaired, but suggested that the deficits could not be attributed solely to syntactic impairments. Study 2 investigated the effects of memory on sentence comprehension by comparing off-line (grammaticality judgment) with on-line (cross-modal naming) language processing in 11 AD and 9 control subjects. The results revealed impaired performance in the off-line task but normal performance in the on-line task using the same sentences. Performance on the off-line task correlated with independent measures of verbal working memory. These data are used to argue that sentence comprehension impairments are related to verbal working memory deficits in AD.
2012
Two studies explored whether sentence comprehension impairments in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are due to deficits in syntactic processing or memory. Study 1 used a picture-pointing sentence comprehension task to measure the final outcome of comprehension in an off-line fashion. It showed the comprehension of 30 patients with AD to be impaired, but suggested that the deficits could not be attributed solely to syntactic impairments. Study 2 investigated the effects of memory on sentence comprehension by comparing off-line (grammaticality judgment) with on-line (cross-modal naming) language processing in 11 AD and 9 control subjects. The results revealed impaired performance in the off-line task but normal performance in the on-line task using the same sentences. Performance on the off-line task correlated with independent measures of verbal working memory. These data are used to argue that sentence comprehension impairments are related to verbal working memory deficits in AD. © 1998 Aca...
Syntactic Comprehension Deficits in Alzheimer's Disease
Brain and Language, 2000
Syntactic comprehension of German patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type was investigated and compared to healthy controls matched with respect to age, sex, and education. Special attention was directed at syntactic structures, which, in contrast to a language like English, are feasible in a grammatically rich language like German. In a sentence picture matching paradigm, only semantically reversible sentences were used. Syntactic complexity ranged from simple active voice sentences to more complex sentences like center-embedded object relative sentences. In comparison to their controls, patients showed a deficit in nearly all categories. Their performance was not influenced by age, but was heavily influenced by the degree of cognitive impairment. Patients with mild cognitive impairment, as defined by a MMSE score of 20 or higher, showed only slight difficulties in syntactic processing, whereas patients with moderate to severe impairment (MMSE Ͻ 20) did not perform above chance limits in most syntactic categories. It appears as though syntactic comprehension is only mildly affected in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease and is rather severely impaired in more advanced stages. In the present report, results are discussed in terms of working memory demands for syntactic processing.
Sentence Repetition and Processing Resources in Alzheimer's Disease
Brain and Language, 2000
Sentence processing in Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been found to be influenced by several grammatical and extragrammatical factors, including phrase structure and verb-argument relations, number of propositions/verbs, and processing resource capacity. This study examines the effects of these variables on sentence production in AD. Normal control and AD subjects were asked to repeat six types of sentences varying along the above dimensions of complexity. Subjects' processing resource capacity was measured using several verbal working memory tests. AD subjects' sentence-repetition performance was impaired compared to the normal control group. Significant effects were observed for branching direction of phrase structure, canonicity of verb-argument relations, and serial position of errors. Sentencerepetition performance significantly correlated with working memory scores. The findings are interpreted within a resource capacity theory of sentence processing.
Performance on the Picture Description Tasks in Patients with Late Dementia of the Alzheimer’s Type
Psycholinguistics in a Modern World
Linguistic problems such as word finding difficulties, writing disorders, problems in phonetic and syntactic use are one of the most important problems seen in individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Compared to late onset, early onset dementia patients experience these problems at a faster rate. However; the linguistic abilities of LAD patients are quite similar to the healthy people. In this study, the picture description performance of late onset AD patients and healthy people were compared in terms of affirmative, negative and interrogative sentence structures. According to the results, there is a significant difference within groups. Late onset AD patients produced more declarative and interrogative sentences in picnic picture description test.
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a degenerative brain disease and the most common cause of dementia, accounts for an estimated 60 percent to 80 percent of cases. AD has two subtypes: Early-onset and Late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Both types are characterized by a decline in memory, problem-solving and other cognitive skills that affect a person's ability to perform everyday activities. Language is the other problem that is observed in these patients. The aim of this study is to examine the sentences production of patients with early and late onset Alzheimer’s disease by using four different language tests and to compare all the results within groups and language tests. Our aim is to reveal the differences in sentence processing and language performance of Turkish Alzheimer patients. In order to reveal the sentence production of Turkish Alzheimer patients, 23 patients with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, 39 patients with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease from Dokuz Eylul University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurology and an age/education-matched control group are included in this study. The data were analyzed using t test and Mann-Whitney U test. For comparison of content and tests, Chisquare test was performed. It was found that patients with early-onset AD used more basic sentences in Picnic Picture description test, Cookie Theft Picture description test and the Story Picture Sequencing test compared to late-onset AD patients. In Random Speech test, patients with late-onset AD used more basic sentences. The other finding was about the nominal and the verbal sentences. It was revealed that patients with early-onset AD used more nominal sentences in all tests compared to late-onset patients. In terms of verbal sentences, it was found that patients with late-onset AD used more verbal sentences than the early-onset patients. Comparison about sentence production of AD patients within tests shows that the highest percent of basic sentence use of AD patients is in Picnic Picture test and the lowest percent is in Random Speech test. In conclusion, early-onset AD patients perform worse due to their cognitive deficits compared to late-onset patients. They tend to use basic and nominal sentences more.
Inhibición semántica y enfermedad de Alzheimer con diferentes grados de severidad
2019
Semantic inhibition is often found to be impaired in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The sentence completion task (Hayling test) was used to investigate whether it would be useful for differentiating mild AD from moderate AD. Method: Latency responses and error scores in the automatic and inhibition parts of the test were registered in these two groups of patients and in a group of healthy older participants. The types of errors were also analysed. Group differences were analysed by ANOVA. In addition, relationships with other neuropsychological tests were reported. Results: Participants with moderate AD performed worse than controls in both the automatic and inhibition sections, whereas participants with mild AD exhibited impaired performance in the inhibition part, but not in the automatic part. Differences between the groups with mild and moderate AD appeared only in the error scores in the inhibition part, specifi cally type 3 errors. Error scores in the inhibition part correlated wit...