SL carries a higher risk for lingual and glossopharyngeal nerve injuries than previously recognized. All of these complications were temporary. On the basis of comparison with historic data, SL by gallows suspension technique may pose a lower risk of dental injuries. This information should be used to improve preoperative SL patient education and informed consent.

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Purpose This study compared performance on three-word fluency measures among individuals with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and primary progressive apraxia of speech (PPAOS), and examined the relationship between word fluency and other measures of language and speech. Method This study included 106 adults with PPA and 30 adults with PPAOS. PPA participants were divided into three clinical subgroups: semantic (svPPA), logopenic (lvPPA), and nonfluent/agrammatic with or without apraxia of speech (nfPPA). Category fluency, letter fluency, and action/verb fluency tasks were administered to all participants. Results The four clinical groups performed abnormally on the word fluency measures, although not to a degree that represented high sensitivity to their PPA or PPAOS diagnosis. All PPA subgroups produced fewer words compared to individuals with PPAOS on all word fluency measures. Moderate correlations were found between word fluency and aphasia severity and naming performance in some of the clinical groups. Conclusions Word fluency measures are often challenging for individuals with PPA and PPAOS, but they are not of equal difficulty, with letter fluency being the most difficult. Differences among word fluency tests also vary to some degree as a function of the clinical group in question, with least impairment in PPAOS. However, the findings of this study do not support statistically significant differences in word fluency task performance among the PPA subgroups. Correlations suggest that word fluency performance in PPA is at least partly related to aphasia severity.

Purpose: This study investigated two classifications of semantic features, feature importance and feature relevance, to verify if they differentially influenced lexical semantic knowledge in individuals with aphasia.Methods: A sorting task was utilized with 20 volunteer participants with aphasia to investigate the semantic processing involved in the association of semantic features with their appropriate nouns. A corpus of 18 nouns was displayed in front of each participant in groups of three along with a card containing the word “UNRELATED.” The participants were verbally instructed to sort decks of cards into one of the four designated piles. The semantic features on the cards were rated as high, mid, and low importance and high, mid, and low relevance.Results: The participants sorted high importance features with their nouns more accurately than they did mid and low importance features. Feature relevance did not differentially influence noun-feature association. These results indicated that the ability of individuals with aphasia to associate features with their nouns is influenced by levels of feature importance.Conclusions: Lexical semantic knowledge in individuals with aphasia is influenced by high versus low level of feature importance and the effect does not extend to a mid level of importance. The classification of feature relevance did not differentially influence the ability of individuals with aphasia to associate features with their appropriate nouns. In addition, participants who were less affected by aphasia performed better in the naming and feature comprehension tasks.