Sign language aphasia from a neurodegenerative disease

Abstract

While Alois Alzheimer recognized the effects of the disease he described on speech and language in his original description of the disease in 1907, the effects of Alzheimer disease on language in deaf signers has not previously been reported. We evaluated a 55 year old right handed congenitally deaf woman with a two year history of progressive memory loss and a deterioration of her ability to communicate in American Sign Language, which she learned at the age of eight. Examination revealed that she had impaired episodic memory as well as marked impairments in the production and comprehension of fingerspelling and grammatically complex sentences. She also had signs of anomia as well as an ideomotor apraxia and visual-spatial dysfunction. This report illustrates the challenges in evaluation of a patient for the presence of degenerative dementia when the person is deaf from birth, uses sign language, and has a late age of primary language acquisition. Although our patient could neither speak nor hear, in many respects her cognitive disorders mirror those of patients with Alzheimer disease who had normally learned to speak.

Changes in communication of Deaf people with dementia: A thematic interview with a close family member

“…Furthermore, initiative to introduce new topics in conversation decreased and passivity in conversation increased overall as found in studies of Hays et al (2004) and Parker et al (2010). The result is in line with the earlier research on DWD (Falchook et al, 2012;Hake & Farlow, 2006).…”

“…(2010). The result is in line with the earlier research on DWD (Falchook et al., 2012; Hake & Farlow, 2006).…”

“…Our study supports the finding of Falchook et al. (2012) that it was difficult for other people to understand DWD because DWD answered questions in an inappropriate way, as also shown in Hake and Farlow (2006) and Parker et al.…”

“…Although Alzheimer’s disease (AD) was first described over a hundred years ago (Alzheimer, 1907) and there is a great body of research on AD, there are only a few studies on Deaf 1 with dementia (DWD) (e.g. Allan, Stapleton, & McLean, 2005; Atkinson et al., 2011; Falchook et al., 2012). For example, no statistics on the numbers of DWD are available globally.…”

Supportive interaction between formal caregivers and Deaf people with dementia

“…The few studies conducted on Deaf people with dementia have highlighted the linguistic challenges that interfere with interaction, such as difficulties finding signs and challenges in comprehension (Rantapää & Pekkala, 2016). Additional difficulties include impaired repetition and naming, a reduced ability to produce and comprehend fingerspelled words, and a tendency to produce short simple sentences (Falchook et al, 2013). To our knowledge, no research exists on social support for Deaf people with dementia.…”