Communication map of elderly people: Sociodemographic and cognitive-linguistic aspects

Abstract

Language and communication difficulties may occur in the elderly population. This is the case of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon and receptive and auditory comprehension difficulties. Few studies have focused on examining the effects of social exposure on maintaining communication in the aging process.OBJECTIVES[1] To describe the communication map of healthy elderly subjects; [2] To search for associations between frequency and time dedicated to communication and cognitive and sociodemographic factors.METHODSHealthy elderly subjects were submitted to cognitive screening, the Token Test – Revised, and the Verbal Fluency test, and answered the ASHA-FACS and the Circles of Communication Partners questionnaires.RESULTS55 subjects, 67% female, with ages over 60 years and varied schooling were included in the sample. Interlocutors in the circle of close friends and acquaintances predominated in the communication map, although the time devoted to communication with these partners was lower than in other circles. Overall, the elderly reported no deficits in language comprehension, with some reports of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Poor performances on the Token Test – Revised and in phonemic verbal fluency along with reports of communication functionality indicated that these subjects compensate for their problems.CONCLUSIONOlder subjects with lower schooling tended to predominantly communicate within the family circle. Within other circles, the number of hours devoted to communication and dialogue partners was not associated with age or schooling. The time devoted to the circle of communication with friends may indicate cognitive difficulties.

Efecto del procesamiento emocional de palabras en el funcionamiento comunicativo y social en el adulto mayor

“…The domains of social communication and reading, writing, and numerical concepts had averages of 6.93 and 6.94, respectively. These results are similar to those reported by Muòa, Cancialosib, Galimbertic, Cacciolad, Gilardonee, and Schindler and by Carvalho and Mansur with healthy older adults, confirming that they can communicate independently but sometimes require assistance (35,36). High-performance social and communicative functioning was confirmed in our older adult participants, even though our goal was not to generalize communicative functioning for the Colombian older adult population.…”

“…While we did not find a relationship linking emotional processing with communicative and social functioning at the statistical level, this may be because there are no instruments sensitive enough to capture differences in communication and social interaction. The asha-facs scale, in this case, was the instrument available to measure communicative and social functioning in our participants, as other authors have done in their research (35)(36)(37). Hence, it is necessary to design standardized and validated instruments to evaluate measures of communicative and social functionality in typical individuals.…”

“…In ldts, participants read written stimuli (words and pseudowords) on a computer and had to decide as quickly as they could whether it was a word by pressing a button according to the response. At the end of the session, the participants rated the valence and activation/ alert level with the Self-Assessment Manikin system, which ranges from 1 to 5 (27). In addition, a third scale was used based on emotionality.…”

“…Each item is rated on a seven-point scale indicating the level of independence needed to communicate (22). This scale was used in previous studies with older adults (27)(28)(29). Since there was no validation and translation of the scale for Colombia, the scale was translated and reviewed by academic peers for this study (Appendix 1), as well as the statistical application of Cronbach's alpha to measure the internal consistency of each of the domains.…”