Descriptive writing abilities in Alzheimer's disease

Neils, Jean; Boller, François; Gerdeman, Bernice; Cole, Monroe

doi:10.1080/01688638908400925

Cited by 35 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…They were also characterized by some misspellings. At the syntactic level, AD patients produced fewer and shorter clauses, especially subordinate clauses, as well as fewer verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions, whereas their number of grammatical errors was comparable to that of controls [10,13,14]. The analysis of single written sentences confirmed that written syntax was simplified but always coherent [15].…”

Section: Written Description Of a Complex Picturesupporting

confidence: 49%

Agraphia in Alzheimer’s Disease

Croisile¹

1999

Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord

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Writing disorders are an early manifestation of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), often more severe than language difficulties. AD patients produce shorter and less informative written descriptions of a complex picture than controls. These abbreviated texts also include many intrusions, semantic substitutions, and misspellings. Syntactic difficulties are characterized by a reduction of subordinate clauses rather than by the occurrence of grammatical errors. Lexical spelling is systematically more impaired and affected earlier than phonological spelling. With disease progression, the deficits of central writing processes extend to graphic difficulties and alteration of handwriting spatial organization. In the context of a semiotic hierarchy, an inverse relationship is suggested between writing acquisition during childhood and subsequent writing degradation in AD. The writing disturbance in AD is evidently related to a disruption in the anatomicofunctional cerebral network designed for writing processes, mainly in the parietal regions.

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Section: Written Description Of a Complex Picturesupporting

confidence: 49%

Agraphia in Alzheimer’s Disease

Croisile¹

1999

Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord

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“…The shortest sentences were written by patients with dementia, those with MCI wrote slightly longer sentences, and the longest sentences were written by patients without cognitive impairment. This result was expected and coincides with that of previous studies, confirming that the ability to write a sentence is adversely affected by cognitive impairment [3,6,27]. A previous study found a correlation between the degree of cognitive impairment and a decline in the ability for sentence writing: while 85% of nondemented elderly wrote a correct spontaneous sentence, only 67% of those with mild dementia, 41% of those with moderate dementia and none with severe dementia were able to write such a sentence [29].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

“…In a study of patients with AD, the ability to formulate a complete sentence was related to dementia severity [5]. When asked to write a story about a picture, patients with AD of mild to moderate severity wrote shorter descriptive paragraphs than normal subjects matched for age and gender (28.4 vs. 79.9 words) [6]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Retrospective Analysis of the Sentence Writing Component of the Mini Mental State Examination: Cognitive and Affective Aspects

Press

Velikiy

Berzak

et al. 2012

Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord

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Background: One of the components of the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) is the request to write a sentence. We investigated the relationship between the characteristics of the written sentence of the MMSE and the cognitive and affective status of elderly patients. Methods: The characteristics of the sentence were compared to the total MMSE score, sociodemographic characteristics, tests evaluating cognition and affective status, and diagnoses. Results: The number of words was significantly associated with the degree of cognitive impairment, whereas the emotional polarity of sentences and concerns about health were associated with depression. Conclusions: Characteristics of the MMSE sentence may provide important additional information regarding both cognition and affect when assessing older people.

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“…A positive correlation was observed between the severity of the dementia and spelling/writing measures (lexical and allographic). Agraphia or dysgraphia, observed in early AD [22], encompasses a progressive disorganization and degeneration of the various components of handwriting [23]; these include the complexity of the structure of sentences [24], the diversity and the accuracy of words used [25], punctuation [26], organization [25], the production of grammatically incorrect sentences [27,28], the length of the sentences [27], the amount of written information [28], the morphology of the letters [27] and spelling [29], graphic and spatial layout of letters and their arrangement in texts [18]. Fukui and Lee [30] examined the possibility that agraphia/dysgraphia may be an early sign of degenerative dementia, reporting the concurrent or subsequent emergence of non-fluent aphasia, ideomotor apraxia, executive dysfunction and asymmetric akinesicrigid syndrome; these observations implicate degenerative processes involving the parietal-occipital-temporal regions, basal ganglia and striato-frontal projections.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Performance Deficits and Dysgraphia in Alzheimer’s Disease Patients

Archer¹,

Onofri²,

Mercuri³

et al. 2015

MEDJ

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Abstract:Introduction: Agraphia or dysgraphia, observed often in early AD, encompasses a progressive disorganization and degeneration of the various components of handwriting.Methods: Deficits in writing ability, dysgraphia, and the relationship with other measures of cognitive decline were studied in a group of 30 patients, originating from the Lazio region, Rome, Italy, presenting a moderate to relatively severe stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Extent of dysgraphia and cognitive performance was compared with a matched group of healthy controls selected from the same region.Results: Several markedly strong relationships between dysgraphia and several measures of cognitive performance in AD patients were observed concomitant with consistent deficits by this patient sample in comparison with the matched group of healthy control subjects were obtained. Additionally, several measures of loss of functional integrity, MMSE, ADL and IADL, were found to be associated with both dysgraphia and impairments in cognitive performance. Conclusion:The present results are discussed from the notion of affected brain regions underlying functions in cognition, language and motor domains that are disturbed in AD.

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Descriptive writing abilities in Alzheimer's disease

Cited by 35 publications

References 5 publications

Agraphia in Alzheimer’s Disease

Agraphia in Alzheimer’s Disease

A Retrospective Analysis of the Sentence Writing Component of the Mini Mental State Examination: Cognitive and Affective Aspects

Cognitive Performance Deficits and Dysgraphia in Alzheimer’s Disease Patients

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