PROVERB AND IDIOM COMPREHENSION IN ALZHEIMER DISEASE

Twenty-nine patients diagnosed with Probable Alzheimer Disease were administered tests of word, familiar phrases (idioms and proverbs), and novel phrase comprehension. From the early stage of the disease, patients performed worse at understanding familiar phrases than single words or novel phrases. The results uphold common observations that AD patients have difficulty interpreting abstract meanings. Cognitive variables responsible for poor idiom/proverb comprehension and the clinical implications of this new protocol are discussed.

[1]  D. R. Gorham,et al.  A PROVERBS TEST FOR CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL USE , 1956 .

[2]  Human Cerebral Asymmetry , 1984 .

[3]  G. Rochford.  A study of naming errors in dysphasic and in demented patients. , 1971, Neuropsychologia.

[4]  Leon Manelis,et al.  Recognition and Cued Recall of Idioms and Phrases. , 1973 .

[5]  Jeffrey L. Cummings,et al.  Aphasia in dementia of the Alzheimer type , 1985, Neurology.

[6]  E. Koranyi.  The Cortical Dementias , 1988, Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie.

[7]  Daniel Kempler,et al.  Lexical and pantomine abilities in Alzheimer's disease , 1988 .

[8]  R. Gibbs.  Spilling the beans on understanding and memory for idioms in conversation , 1980, Memory & cognition.

[9]  P. Lieberman.  Some Effects of Semantic and Grammatical Context on the Production and Perception of Speech , 1963 .

[10]  M. Folstein,et al.  Language disorder predicts familial Alzheimer's disease. , 1981, The Johns Hopkins medical journal.

[11]  Charles E. Osgood,et al.  Salience of the word as a unit in the perception of language , 1974 .

[12]  R. Heaton,et al.  Neuropsychologic features of early- and late-onset Alzheimer's disease. , 1986, Archives of neurology.

[13]  K. Bayles,et al.  Confrontation naming impairment in dementia , 1983, Brain and Language.

[14]  Anne Cutler,et al.  The access and processing of idiomatic expressions , 1979 .

[15]  H A Simon,et al.  How Big Is a Chunk? , 1974, Science.

[16]  D. V. van Lancker,et al.  Disambiguation of ditropic sentences: acoustic and phonetic cues. , 1981, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[17]  Arthur L. Benton,et al.  Differential behavioral effects in frontal lobe disease , 1968 .

[18]  S. Folstein,et al.  "Mini-mental state". A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. , 1975, Journal of psychiatric research.

[19]  A. Kertesz,et al.  A study of language functioning in Alzheimer patients , 1982, Brain and Language.

[20]  J. Growdon,et al.  Neurological Abnormalities Associated with Severity of Dementia in Alzheimer's Disease , 1986, Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences / Journal Canadien des Sciences Neurologiques.

[21]  D. V. van Lancker,et al.  Idiomatic versus literal interpretations of ditropically ambiguous sentences. , 1981, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[22]  J. Morris,et al.  Aphasia, family history, and the longitudinal course of senile dementia of the alzheimer type , 1985, Psychiatry Research.

[23]  M. Schwartz,et al.  Dissociations of language function in dementia: A case study , 1979, Brain and Language.

[24]  D. Lancker,et al.  Comprehension of familiar phrases by left- but not by right-hemisphere damaged patients , 1987, Brain and Language.

[25]  J E Bogen,et al.  The other side of the brain. II. An appositional mind. , 1969, Bulletin of the Los Angeles neurological societies.

[26]  H. Gardner,et al.  The comprehension of metaphor in brain-damaged patients. , 1977, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[27]  T. Bever.  CEREBRAL ASYMMETRIES IN HUMANS ARE DUE TO THE DIFFERENTIATION OF TWO INCOMPATIBLE PROCESSES: HOLISTIC AND ANALYTIC , 1975, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[28]  Kathryn A. Bayles,et al.  Language function in senile dementia , 1982, Brain and Language.