The language changes that occur over the course of Alzheimer's disease (AD) can impact communication abilities and have profound functional consequences. Picture description tasks can be used to approximate everyday communication abilities of AD patients. As various methods and variables have been studied over the years, current knowledge about the most affected features of AD discourse in the context of picture descriptions is difficult to summarize. This systematic review aims to provide researchers with an overview of the most common areas of impairment in AD discourse as they appear in picture description tasks. Based on the 44 articles fulfilling inclusion criteria, our findings reflect a multidimensional pattern of changes in the production (speech rate), syntactic (length of utterance), lexical (word-frequency and use of pronouns), fluency (repetitions and word-finding difficulties), semantic (information units), and discourse (efficiency) domains. We discuss our findings in the light of current research and point to potential scientific and clinical uses of picture description tasks in the context of AD.

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The increased use of C-arm fluoroscopy in interventional pain management has led to higher radiation exposure for pain physicians. This study investigated whether or not real-time radiation dose feedback with coaching can reduce the scatter dose received by pain physicians. Firstly, phantom measurements were made to create a scatter dose profile, which visualizes the average scatter radiation for different C-arm positions at 3 levels of height. Secondly, in the clinical part, the radiation dose received by pain physicians during pain treatment procedures was measured real-time to evaluate (1) the effect of real-time dose feedback on the received scatter dose, and (2) the effect of knowledge of the scatter dose profile and active coaching, on the scatter dose received by the pain physician. The clinical study included 330 interventional pain procedures. The results showed that real-time feedback of the received dose did not lead to a reduction in scatter radiation. However, visualization of the scatter dose in a scatter dose profile and active coaching on optimal positions did reduce the scatter radiation received by pain physicians during interventional pain procedures by 46.4% (P = 0.05). Knowledge of and real-time coaching with the scatter dose profile reduced the dose of pain physicians by half, caused by their increased awareness for scatter radiation and their insight into strategic positioning.

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Purpose The main aim of this study is to provide French Canadian reference data for quantitative measures extracted from connected speech samples elicited by the Western Aphasia Battery–Revised picnic scene, a discourse task frequently used in clinical assessment of acquired language disorders. Method Our sample consisted of 62 healthy French Canadian adults divided in two age groups: a 50- to 69-year-old group and a 70- to 90-year-old group. Results High interrater reliability scores were obtained for most of the variables. Most connected speech variables did not demonstrate an age effect. However, the 70- to 90-year-old group produced more repetitions than the 50- to 69-year-old group and displayed reduced communication efficiency (number of information content units per minute). Conclusion These findings contribute to building a reference data set to analyze descriptive discourse production in clinical settings.

It is poorly understood whether and how normal aging affects different aspects of connected speech production, such as fluency, informativity, efficiency, and vocabulary use. The present study cross-sectionally investigates the effects of age on a broad variety of language production measures, using connected speech samples elicited by the two most frequently used picture description tasks. Twenty-six young (20-25 y.o.) and twenty-two older participants (55-90 y.o.) were included in this study. Speech samples were transcribed using the CLAN program and eight measures were extracted. Our results indicate that, in a picture description task, older adults produce more disruptions to fluency, but that lexical diversity, informativity, and efficiency of speech remain unaffected by age. The use of less frequent words by older adults might reflect a larger vocabulary size. These findings have implications for future studies assessing changes in connected speech production, in both healthy and clinical populations.

L’Échelle de Dénomination de Boston (BNT) est un des tests neuropsychologiques les plus utilisés pour évaluer les capacités de dénomination d’images, en particulier lors du dépistage de démences. À partir de la version originale (60 items), une version abrégée à 30 items (BNT-30) a été élaborée. La présente étude a analysé les réponses produites par 286 participants québécois francophones âgés entre 50 et 93 ans afin d’établir des normes pour cette version abrégée. Les résultats montrent que la performance au BNT-30 est liée à l’âge et au niveau d’éducation. Des consignes d’administration détaillées sont proposées afin d’uniformiser la passation et la cotation du BNT-30.

Semantic variant primary progressive aphasia is a clinical syndrome characterized by marked semantic deficits, anterior temporal lobe atrophy, and reduced connectivity within a distributed set of regions belonging to the functional network associated with semantic processing. However, to fully depict the linguistic and clinical signatures of semantic variant primary progressive aphasia, it is necessary to also characterize preserved neural networks and linguistic abilities, such as those subserving speech production. In this case-control observational study, we employed whole-brain seed-based connectivity on task-free magnetic resonance imaging data of 32 semantic variant primary progressive aphasia patients and 46 healthy controls to investigate the functional connectivity of the speech production network and its relationship with the underlying grey matter status. We investigated brain-behavior correlations with speech fluency measures collected through clinical tests (verbal agility) and connected speech (speech rate, articulation rate). As a control network, we also investigated functional connectivity within the affected semantic network. Patients presented with increased connectivity in the speech production network between left inferior frontal and supramarginal regions, independent of underlying grey matter volume. In semantic variant primary progressive aphasia patients, preserved (verbal agility) and increased (articulation rate) speech fluency measures correlated with increased connectivity between inferior frontal and supramarginal regions. As expected, patients demonstrated decreased functional connectivity in the semantic network (dependent on the underlying grey matter atrophy) associated with average nouns’ age of acquisition during connected speech. Collectively, these results provide a compelling model for studying compensation mechanisms in response to disease that might inform the design of future rehabilitation strategies in semantic variant primary progressive aphasia.