La habilidad léxico-semántica en la Enfermedad de Alzheimer: Un estudio de la fluidez verbal con categorías semánticas

Abstract

Language impairments in Alzheimer's disease (AD) primarily affect lexical and semantic levels, which significantly depend on the speaker's memory state. Qualitative shifts in semantic memory are due to neurodegenerative processes underlying dementia and give rise to anomia, or the speaker's inability to access and retrieve lexical units and their conceptual backgrounds. In this paper we aim at studying cognitive and semantic features of anomic deficit in AD and exploring the possibility to apply them in tests for early detection of dementia. For that purpose, we analyze the results from our experimental version of a classical test on semantic verbal fluency (SemVF) with nonpathological aged persons, persons with Mild Cognitive Impairment and persons with AD. The experimental version of the test introduces a division into four 15-minute intervals, in order to find out which processes of semantic access, either automatic or controlled, are impaired in different cognitive states of the elderly. Our results show a correlation between the cognitive state and the lexical-semantic ability of the speaker. Furthermore, they highlight, on the one hand, that the duration of the SemVF test should not be less than 60 seconds, with internal division into 4 15-second intervals, and, on the other hand, that some semantic categories-colours and fruit in particularare more prone to be affected by cognitive retrogenesis, which caracterizes AD dementia.

Reformulación conversacional en personas con la enfermedad de Alzheimer

“…Los datos demuestran que el GC logra puntajes más altos y con desempeño típico en relación con el GDTA, que presenta resultados que posicionan los sujetos como con deterioro cognitivo (26)(27)(28) . Cabe señalar que en relación con niveles de funcionalidad entregados pela escala de Pfeffer, el puntaje de cuatro de los participantes residentes en ELEAMs se presente más descendido probablemente porque por norma general no pueden cumplir con actividades diarias como cocinar y bañarse, por ejemplo, porque deben ser siempre asistidos independientemente de su nivel cognitivo o funcional.…”

Aging language and language typology, or why we should pay attention to cross-linguistic features when studying aging

“…A comparative analysis of semantic fluency task in 15 languages (Ardila 2020) showed that such a highly universal semantic category as 'animals' can report significant differences in the number of elicited words when all other relevant variables are controlled for. Surprisingly, a recent experimental research (Ivanova et al 2020) also proved that 'animals' is not sensitive as a semantic category to the discrimination of healthy and pathological aging in Spanish language. However, Spanish is significantly more enriched in semantically empty compensatory units (the so-called discourse markers) in comparison with other languages (Ochoa-Obeso, Ivanova, and García Meilán, 2023 (forthcoming); Ivanova, Martínez-Nicolás, and García Meilán 2023).…”

¿Son las categorías léxicas tan discretas como parece?

“…Frente al modelo retrogenético, que resultan especialmente interesante para explicar algunos de los fenómenos de cambio en la función lingüística a lo largo de la vida (cf. Ivanova et al, 2020), la disociación categorial parece seguir el modelo lineal que define la organización de las clases léxicas en términos discretos con interconexión gramatical-semántica. xxviii…”