A study of the abilities in oral language comprehension of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination - Portuguese version: a reference guide for the Brazilian population

Abstract

We analyzed the performance of 162 normal subjects, subdivided into groups according to age and schooling, in the oral comprehension tasks of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination translated and adapted to Brazilian Portuguese to obtain a profile of performance for the Brazilian population, as well as cut-off scores for each task, and to determine the best combination of tasks that distinguish normal from aphasic subjects, as a guide for clinicians. The normal subjects were compared to 69 aphasics. Age alone influenced the performance in the designation of actions (subjects above 70 years showing the worst performance); schooling alone influenced the comprehension of forms, colors and numbers (subjects with less than four years of education showing a poorer performance). Both age and schooling influenced the performance in Body Part Identification (BPI) and Complex Ideational Material (CIM) with mean values of 70.5 ± 3.3 (Word Discrimination, WD), 18.9 ± 1.4 (BPI), 14.7 ± 0.9 (Commands), and 10.3 ± 1.7 (CIM) for the whole sample; the cut-off scores obtained were 65 (WD), 17.5 (BPI), 14 (Commands), and 9.5 (CIM) for the whole sample. Logistic regression showed that the combination of BPI + Commands + CIM was the most efficient in differentiating normal subjects from aphasics, with 72.5% sensitivity and 97.6% specificity. However, for low-education subjects, BPI and Commands were sufficient for this differentiation (75.7% sensitivity and 84.7% specificity). The main contribution of this study was to provide reference values that are far more representative of our population to be used by health professionals in Brazil, taking into account cultural differences.

Verbal language spontaneous recovery after ischemic stroke

“…As for the age, the sample showed an average age of 62, disagreeing with other studies that showed aphasic patients with differences regarding the averages showed in samples [13][14][15][16] . Our sample was formed by a population who had low education level, agreeing with researches that had similar averages, showing that the Brazilian public service users present a low rate of schooling 14,16,17 .…”

“…Based on the results there was no difference between men and women, agreeing with a research in which the sample showed up as homogeneous as ours 14 and disagreeing with a study that showed a non homogeneous sample, with a prevalence of 66.6% of women 15 .…”

Avaliação da linguagem após acidente vascular cerebral em adultos no estado de Sergipe

“…subjects, the authors verified that the variables age and schooling influenced the performance in both groups 18 .…”

“…A wide age interval is found in researches in this field, as, for example, ages varying in between 11 and 83 23 , 19 and 80 13 and 15 to 84 18 . The occurrence of a larger age interval in these studies may be justified by the fact that the inclusion criteria accepted other cerebral lesions as well as stroke.…”

Amnésia retrógrada funcional grave: relato de caso

“…Tais casos apresentam tipicamente instalação aguda e marcante perda da identidade pessoal, sendo bastante semelhantes ao descrito no presente relato (Sellal et al, 2002, Kritchevsky et al, 2004. Apesar de não haver consenso entre os autores, o termo amnésia retrógrada funcional é empregado para descrever esses casos em que a etiologia não pode ser classificada pre- (Mansur et al, 2005).…”