The decline of narrative discourse in Alzheimer’s disease

Ash, Sharon; Moore, Peachie; Vesely, Luisa; Grossman, Murray

doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2007.07.105

Cited by 42 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Other features in this domain have been rarely or inconsistently reported across studies; see Supplementary Table 3 for a complete list. Although, several studies agree in considering syntactic processes preserved in persons with AD (Kavé and Levy, 2003; Forbes-McKay and Venneri, 2005), a consistent number of the studies included in this review report a simplification of syntax, characterized by reduced sentences and short utterances (Ash et al, 2007; de Lira et al, 2011; Sajjadi et al, 2012a; Orimaye et al, 2014; Ash and Grossman, 2015; Yancheva et al, 2015). …”

Section: Results: Relevant Features and Linguistic Profiles Of The Mamentioning

confidence: 74%

Connected Speech in Neurodegenerative Language Disorders: A Review

et al. 2017

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Language assessment has a crucial role in the clinical diagnosis of several neurodegenerative diseases. The analysis of extended speech production is a precious source of information encompassing the phonetic, phonological, lexico-semantic, morpho-syntactic, and pragmatic levels of language organization. The knowledge about the distinctive linguistic variables identifying language deficits associated to different neurodegenerative diseases has progressively improved in the last years. However, the heterogeneity of such variables and of the way they are measured and classified limits any generalization and makes the comparison among studies difficult. Here we present an exhaustive review of the studies focusing on the linguistic variables derived from the analysis of connected speech samples, with the aim of characterizing the language disorders of the most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases, including primary progressive aphasia, Alzheimer's disease, movement disorders, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. A total of 61 studies have been included, considering only those reporting group analysis and comparisons with a group of healthy persons. This review first analyzes the differences in the tasks used to elicit connected speech, namely picture description, story narration, and interview, considering the possible different contributions to the assessment of different linguistic domains. This is followed by an analysis of the terminologies and of the methods of measurements of the variables, indicating the need for harmonization and standardization. The final section reviews the linguistic domains affected by each different neurodegenerative disease, indicating the variables most consistently impaired at each level and suggesting the key variables helping in the differential diagnosis among diseases. While a large amount of valuable information is already available, the review highlights the need of further work, including the development of automated methods, to take advantage of the richness of connected speech analysis for both research and clinical purposes.

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Section: Results: Relevant Features and Linguistic Profiles Of The Mamentioning

confidence: 74%

Connected Speech in Neurodegenerative Language Disorders: A Review

et al. 2017

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“…However, some authors have also observed not only lexical–semantic impairment but also macrolinguistic impairment in AD participants’ discourse production (Ash et al . , Brandao et al . , Dijkstra et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discourse macrolinguistic impairment as a marker of linguistic and extralinguistic functions decline in early Alzheimer's disease

Pistono

Jucla

Bézy

et al. 2018

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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Background Alzheimer's disease is characterized by macrolinguistic changes. This decline is often analyzed with quantitative scales. Aims To analyze discourse production in early Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to identify qualitative markers of macrolinguistic decline. Methods & Procedures We analyzed macrolinguistic features of a clinical narrative task along with patients’ cognitive changes. To do so, 17 early AD participants and 17 healthy controls were recruited and given a full neuropsychological and language assessment. Narrative discourses produced during the language assessment were transcribed and macrolinguistic features were qualitatively analyzed (i.e., local and global coherence marks and discourse informativeness). Inter‐group comparison was complemented by intra‐group correlation. As some inter‐group comparisons revealed the existence of subgroups of patients, permutation tests were used to investigate how these subgroups differed vis‐à‐vis cognitive measures. Outcomes & Results Overall, the results indicate that AD participants presented declines in informativeness and global coherence, correlated with declines in memory and executive functions. Permutation tests showed that participants with AD producing referential errors or misinterpretations had a deeper lexical–executive decline and a lower Mini‐Mental State Evaluation (MMSE). Conclusions & Implications This study shows that two clinically relevant, qualitative signs differ in discourse production between typical ageing and early AD, namely information units and modalizing discourse. It also shows that macrolinguistic assessment is a useful tool for revealing impaired communication and cognition in early AD. Although lexical processing decline probably contributes to patients’ macrolinguistic impairment, implications of extralinguistic functioning should be further investigated.

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“…However, Almor et al report correlations that were computed for individuals with AD together with control participants, and it is possible that this analysis masked existing associations within the AD group alone. Ash, Moore, Vesely, and Grossman (2007) asked 20 individuals with AD and 10 matched control participants to narrate wordless picture books, and reported a significant negative correlation between picture naming scores and word choice errors. Brandão, Castelló, van Dijk, de Mattos Pimenta Parente, and Peña-Casanova (2009) reported that picture naming scores were negatively correlated with the number of incomplete propositions in autobiographical narratives.…”

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confidence: 99%

Word retrieval in picture descriptions produced by individuals with Alzheimer’s disease

Kavé

Goral

2016

Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology

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What can tests of single-word production tell us about word retrieval in connected speech? We examined this question in 20 people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and in 20 cognitively intact individuals. All participants completed tasks of picture naming and semantic fluency, and provided connected speech through picture descriptions. Picture descriptions were analyzed for total word output, percentages of content words, percentages of nouns, and percentages of pronouns out of all words, type-token ratio of all words and type-token ratio of nouns alone, mean frequency of all words and mean frequency of nouns alone, and mean word length. Individuals with AD performed worse than did cognitively intact individuals on the picture naming and semantic fluency tasks. They also produced a lower proportion of content words overall, a lower proportion of nouns, and a higher proportion of pronouns, as well as more frequent and shorter words on picture descriptions. Group differences in total word output and type-token ratios did not reach significance. Correlations between scores on tasks of single-word retrieval and measures of retrieval in picture descriptions emerged in the AD group but not in the control group. Scores on a picture naming task were associated with difficulties in word retrieval in connected speech in AD, while scores on a task of semantic verbal fluency were less useful in predicting measures of retrieval in context in this population.

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The decline of narrative discourse in Alzheimer’s disease

Cited by 42 publications

References 3 publications

Connected Speech in Neurodegenerative Language Disorders: A Review

Connected Speech in Neurodegenerative Language Disorders: A Review

Discourse macrolinguistic impairment as a marker of linguistic and extralinguistic functions decline in early Alzheimer's disease

Word retrieval in picture descriptions produced by individuals with Alzheimer’s disease

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