We also thank the patients and their families for their assistance in our project, Christine Voegeli for her help in testing participants and data analysis, Sarah Smith for her help with the norming studies, and Tina Loose for help in making up the stimulus lists.

This experiment explored knowledge of four types of semantic relations (superordinate category, part, property, and function) in Alzheimer's disease (AD) subjects and age- and education-matched controls. Moderate AD subjects showed the greatest disruption on functional relations, intermediate disruption on part and property relations, and the least disruption on category relations; mild AD subjects showed a similar pattern but significant deficits only on functions. We suggest that the disproportionate deficit on functions reflects a greater cognitive complexity of functions than other semantic relations that renders them more vulnerable either to disrupted processing or to structural degradation of the network of associations among semantic concepts. (JINS, 1995, 1, 568–574.)

Participants made judgments about the relative salience of category exemplars (e.g., fruit: apple or grape) or parts (e.g., plane: wings or seats). Mildly affected Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients were as accurate but slower than normal controls, and their response times increased more for related (e.g., apple, grape, or fig) than unrelated (e.g., apple, gym, bandit) choices as the number of alternatives was increased from 2 to 3. Performance (accuracy and response times) of moderate-severely affected patients was poorer still, but number of distractors and relatedness did not interact. In combination with previous findings (e.g., M. K. Johnson, A. M. Hermann, & J. L. Bonilla, 1995), these results suggest that the reflective processes necessary for deciding among competing alternatives show disruption early in the disease process. Such processing deficits would compound any difficulties arising from a degrading semantic structure.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) burden of disease study identified dementia and hearing problems as leading causes of loss of quality of life in the industrial world. The prevalence of dementia and hearing problems increases in aging societies. Comorbidity of these two diseases causes increasing demands on healthcare systems. The similarity and possible interaction of symptoms renders diagnosis and therapy of dementia and hearing loss a challenge for neurologists, psychiatrists, ear, nose and throat (ENT) and hearing specialists. Knowledge of both diseases enables an early intervention and helps preserve participation in society and thereby reducing the risk of developing dementia. This paper focuses on the characteristics of the diagnosis and therapy of hearing problems and dementia.