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More than two million elderly Americans suffer from senile dementia, an age-related disease affecting memory, intellect, and communication. The purpose of this study was to explore the diagnostic efficacy of language tasks for identifying senile dementia. The performance of 35 dementia patients was compared to that of 28 normal senescents on five language tasks and certain psychological measures reputed to be sensitive to the disease such as the Block Design and Similarities subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the Mental Status Questionnaire (MSQ), and the Nonsense Syllable Learning Tests. Language tasks presented were: Story-retelling, Naming, Sentence Disambiguation, Verbal Expression, and Sentence Correction. A discriminant analysis found the Sentence Correction Task, the MSQ, and the Verbal Expression Test to best discriminate patients with senile dementia from normal aged subjects. Semantic functions were found to be more vulnerable than phonologic and syntactic to the effects of progressive cortical atrophy.

The use of the s/z ratio as a clinical indicator of laryngeal pathology was investigated with 28 dysphonic subjects with laryngeal pathology (nodules or polyps), 36 dysphonic subjects without laryngeal pathology, and 86 normal-speaking subjects. While no statistical difference was found between the three groups in their ability to sustain /s/, the subjects with laryngeal pathology had significantly lower duration times for /z/ than subjects in the other two groups. The computed s/z ratios were significantly higher for the dysphonic subjects with laryngeal pathology; subjects with functional dysphonia free of laryngeal pathology demonstrated the same s/z ratios (approximately 1.0) as the normal-speaking control subjects. The dysphonic subjects with laryngeal pathology produced s/z ratios in excess of 1.4 ninety-five percent of the time. It appeared from these data that when an additive mass developed along the glottal margin, vocal fold approximation was less efficient. This decrement in efficiency appears to result in a decrease in glottal resistance, increasing air flow, and a shortened phonatory duration time. The clinical usefulness of the s/z ratio as a duration measure for identifying voice clients who may have laryngeal lesions is considered.

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The performance of individuals with mild and moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD), normal age-matched elderly individuals, and stroke patients with fluent and nonfluent aphasia were compared on a group of neuropsychological tasks. The unique performance profiles associated with each subject group are discussed, and the best tasks for intergroup differentiation specified. Whereas the tasks employed were efficacious for discriminating early- and middle-stage AD patients from normal subjects and aphasic stroke patients, and early- from middle-stage AD patients, they were not efficacious for subtyping aphasia patients according to fluency. Generally, memory measures were best for intergroup differentiation.