Sentence comprehension and praxis deficits in Parkinson's disease

We evaluated the ability of nondemented patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) to interpret various aspects of sentences and to perform learned limb and oral gestures. The patients were significantly compromised in their ability to answer simple questions about sentences such as “The eagle chased the hawk that was fast. Which bird was chased?” A discriminant analysis revealed that up to 73% of PD patients differ from control subjects in their ability to perform this task. Patients with PD were also significantly compromised in their gestural performance, and a discriminant analysis indicated that a praxis deficit may be evident in up to 64% of patients. We conclude that language and gestural processing impairments are frequent in patients with PD.

[1]  A R Damasio,et al.  Aphasia with nonhemorrhagic lesions in the basal ganglia and internal capsule. , 1982, Archives of neurology.

[2]  W. P. Dixon,et al.  BMPD statistical software manual , 1988 .

[3]  I. T. Draper.  THE ASSESSMENT OF APHASIA AND RELATED DISORDERS , 1973 .

[4]  M. Piccirilli,et al.  Frontal lobe dysfunction in Parkinson's disease: prognostic value for dementia? , 1989, European neurology.

[5]  Myrna F. Schwartz,et al.  Reconstructing from a degraded trace: A study of sentence repetition in agrammatism , 1986, Brain and Language.

[6]  Daniel B. Hier,et al.  Language disintegration in dementia: Effects of etiology and severity , 1985, Brain and Language.

[7]  C. Marsden,et al.  An investigation of the phenomenon of “set” in Parkinson's disease , 1988, Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society.

[8]  C. Marsden,et al.  HOW COMMON IS DEMENTIA IN PARKINSON'S DISEASE? , 1984, The Lancet.

[9]  C. Caltagirone,et al.  Dementia in Parkinson's disease: possible specific involvement of the frontal lobes. , 1985, The International journal of neuroscience.

[10]  E. Critchley,et al.  Speech disorders of Parkinsonism: a review. , 1981, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[11]  J. Illes,et al.  Language production in Parkinson's disease: Acoustic and linguistic considerations , 1988, Brain and Language.

[12]  R. Nebes,et al.  The effect of semantic and syntactic structure on verbal memory in Alzheimer's disease , 1989, Brain and Language.

[13]  E. Kokmen,et al.  Motor Speech Disorders , 1976 .

[14]  N. Geschwind.  The apraxias: neural mechanisms of disorders of learned movement. , 1975, American scientist.

[15]  F J Dunne,et al.  Subcortical dementia. , 1993, BMJ.

[16]  D. Benson,et al.  Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease , 1988, Neurology.

[17]  P J Whitehouse,et al.  The concept of subcortical and cortical dementia: Another look , 1986, Annals of neurology.

[18]  B. Rovner,et al.  Language dysfunction in early‐ and late‐onset possible Alzheimer's disease , 1988, Neurology.

[19]  Donald T. Stuss,et al.  Frontal lobes and language , 1989, Brain and Language.

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

[21]  U. Roessmann,et al.  Parkinson disease, dementia, and alzheimer disease: Clinicopathological correlations , 1980, Annals of neurology.

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

[23]  D L Price,et al.  Basal forebrain neurons in the dementia of Parkinson disease , 1983, Annals of neurology.

[24]  G. Paulson,et al.  Cortical vs subcortical dementia. Neuropsychological differences. , 1986, Archives of neurology.

[25]  F Lhermitte,et al.  Age‐induced cognitive disturbances in Parkinson's disease , 1990, Neurology.

[26]  C. Markham,et al.  Similarities of cerebral glucose metabolism in Alzheimer's and Parkinsonian dementia , 1985 .

[27]  C. Wiles.  Quantification of neurologic deficit , 1990 .

[28]  M. Hallett,et al.  A physiological mechanism of bradykinesia. , 1980, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[29]  H. Kolk,et al.  Agrammatism as a variable phenomenon , 1985 .

[30]  Suzanne Corkin,et al.  Semantic impairment and anomia in Alzheimer's disease , 1986, Brain and Language.

[31]  K. Marder,et al.  An estimate of the prevalence of dementia in idiopathic Parkinson's disease. , 1988, Archives of neurology.

[32]  J. Ferro,et al.  Lesion size and location in ideomotor apraxia. , 1984, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[33]  G. E. Alexander,et al.  Functional architecture of basal ganglia circuits: neural substrates of parallel processing , 1990, Trends in Neurosciences.

[34]  P. Roland,et al.  Supplementary motor area and other cortical areas in organization of voluntary movements in man. , 1980, Journal of neurophysiology.

[35]  A. Hakim,et al.  Dementia in Parkinson disease , 1979, Neurology.

[36]  K M Heilman,et al.  Apraxia and the supplementary motor area. , 1986, Archives of neurology.

[37]  M. Kuskowski,et al.  Dementia in Parkinson disease: A neuropsychological analysis , 1982, Brain and Cognition.

[38]  S. Bellur.  Alzheimer's Disease: Senile Dementia and Related Disorders , 1979 .

[39]  H. Buschke,et al.  Impaired ranking of semantic attributes in dementia , 1985, Brain and Language.

[40]  M. Alexander,et al.  Aphasia with predominantly subcortical lesion sites: description of three capsular/putaminal aphasia syndromes. , 1982, Archives of neurology.

[41]  D E Kuhl,et al.  Patterns of local cerebral glucose utilization determined in Parkinson's disease by the [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose method , 1984, Annals of neurology.