Dementia and Language
- LAST MODIFIED: 21 April 2021
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199772810-0275
- LAST MODIFIED: 21 April 2021
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199772810-0275
Introduction
Neurodegenerative diseases progress over three distinct stages: (1) the preclinical stage, at which individuals can be placed on a continuum ranging from completely asymptomatic to a very subtle decline; (2) mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which is the symptomatic predementia stage of dementia, characterized by impairment in memory or other domains of cognition; and (3) dementia itself. Dementia is a common condition that mainly occurs in older people. It is characterized by a significant decline of cognitive functioning severe enough to impact activities of daily living and social functioning. The loss of cognitive functioning in dementia may affect long-term and short-term memory, attention, visual perception, executive functions, motor planning and execution, problem-solving, and language. Dementia can be caused by a wide range of pathological entities, among which Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common. Other dementia types include vascular dementia (VaD), dementia in atypical parkinsonian syndromes such as dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and corticobasal degeneration (CBD), and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). While these are commonly associated with an impairment of episodic memory, the major forms of dementia are also characterized by deficits of language affecting comprehension and production abilities of words and sentences. Clinical linguistic profiles usually associated with common forms of dementia have been described, some more detailed than others. Neurolinguistic studies also went further than the mere description of symptoms and identified the functional localization of impaired and preserved processing components of the linguistic processing system in dementias. The initial evaluation is the first significant step toward the clinical management of dementia and is based on consensual diagnostic criteria. In some dementia syndromes, such as primary progressive aphasia (PPA), the characterization of language deficits is of major importance for the differential diagnosis of dementia. This article focuses on bibliographic resources related to language and communication disorders in mild cognitive disorders as well as in the most frequent primary progressive syndromes of dementia.
General Overviews
Deficits of spoken and written language processes are accompanying symptoms of the major forms of primary progressive dementias as well as vascular cognitive diseases. These deficits are often prominent symptoms of the disease and may occur early in the process. Substantial information is available for spoken language disturbances in AD as well as in PPA. However, relatively little is known about the patterns of spoken language deterioration in VaD and in dementia associated with atypical parkinsonian syndromes. Finally, knowledge about written language deficits in the major forms of dementia and their contribution to the overall language syndrome are much less established in the literature. The overviews listed here are suitable for graduate students, clinicians, and early-stage researchers. Ames, et al. 2017; Miller and Boeve 2016; and Smith and Farias 2018 are three books recommended for a general overview of the various aspects of neurodegenerative diseases, including diagnosis, epidemiology, neurobiology, treatment, and the characteristics of cognitive impairments. Reilly, et al. 2010 addresses the clinical and neuropsychological signs of non-Alzheimer’s dementias, while Grossman 2008; Macoir, et al. 2015; and Reilly, et al. 2011 encompass most aspects of language impairment in MCI and the major forms of dementia. In most of the following sections, the articles presenting the diagnostic criteria of the different neurodegenerative diseases are referenced, in order to provide the reader with a general overview of their clinical aspects.
Ames, D., J. T. O’Brien, and A. Burns. 2017. Dementia. 5th ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
This book is intended for clinicians working in the field of dementia. In Part 1, they will find an extensive description of all the important issues of dementia, including health economic aspects, driving and palliative care. The other 6 parts concern the clinical aspects of the major forms of dementia (MCI, AD, VaD, DLB, FTD).
Grossman, M. 2008. Language in dementia. In Handbook of the neuroscience of language. Edited by B. Stemmer and H. A. Whitaker, 279–287. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
DOI: 10.1016/B978-008045352-1.00027-6
This informative text addresses the impairment of the following specific aspects of language in dementia: phonology and speech processing, lexical retrieval in word production, semantic memory, and grammatical processing.
Macoir, J., Y. Turgeon, and R. Laforce Jr. 2015. Language processes in delirium and dementia. In International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences. 2d ed. Vol. 13. Edited by James D. Wright, 360–367. Oxford: Elsevier.
In this chapter, the authors provide a comprehensive review of language and communication disorders in AD, VaD, LBD, and PPA. In some of them, language deficits result from impairment to linguistic processes per se. In others, they rather result from impairments affecting other cognitive functions.
Miller, B. L., and B. F. Boeve. 2016. The behavioral neurology of dementia. 2d ed. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
This book provides students, clinicians, and researchers with in-depth knowledge of all the clinical aspects of the major forms of dementia, illustrated by clinical descriptions of diseases and symptoms.
Reilly, J., A. D. Rodriguez, M. Lamy, and J. Neils-Strunjas. 2010. Cognition, language, and clinical pathological features of non-Alzheimer’s dementias: An overview. Journal of Communication Disorders 43.5: 438–452.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2010.04.011
This review article provides an overview of cognition and language characteristics of the most common non-Alzheimer’s dementias, namely PPA, VaD, LBD, and Parkinson’s disease. Their specific pathological features are also briefly outlined.
Reilly, J., J. Troche, and M. Grossman. 2011. Language processing in dementia. In The handbook of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Edited by A. E. Budson and N. W. Kowall, 336–368. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444344110.ch12
This overview provides distinctive descriptions of disorders affecting phonology, naming, as well as semantic, grammatical, and discourse processing in AD and in PPA.
Smith, G. E., and S. T. Farias, eds. 2018. APA handbook of dementia. APA Handbooks in Psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
This comprehensive handbook addresses assessment, comorbidity, evaluation, and treatment of MCI, AD, LBD, VaD, FTD, and other less common dementias. It is a valuable resource for health professionals, researchers, and students interested in neurodegenerative disease.
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Article
- Acceptability Judgments
- Acquisition, Second Language, and Bilingualism, Psycholin...
- Adpositions
- Affixation
- African Linguistics
- Afroasiatic Languages
- Agreement
- Algonquian Linguistics
- Altaic Languages
- Analogy in Language and Linguistics
- Anaphora
- Animal Communication
- Aphasia
- Applicatives
- Applied Linguistics, Critical
- Arawak Languages
- Argument Structure
- Artificial Languages
- Athabaskan Languages
- Australian Languages
- Austronesian Linguistics
- Auxiliaries
- Balkans, The Languages of the
- Baudouin de Courtenay, Jan
- Berber Languages and Linguistics
- Bilingualism and Multilingualism
- Biology of Language
- Blocking
- Borrowing, Structural
- Caddoan Languages
- Caucasian Languages
- Causatives
- Celtic Languages
- Celtic Mutations
- Chomsky, Noam
- Chumashan Languages
- Classifiers
- Clauses, Relative
- Clinical Linguistics
- Cognitive Linguistics
- Colonial Place Names
- Comparative Reconstruction in Linguistics
- Comparative-Historical Linguistics
- Complementation
- Complexity, Linguistic
- Compositionality
- Compounding
- Computational Linguistics
- Conditionals
- Conjunctions
- Connectionism
- Consonant Epenthesis
- Contrastive Analysis in Linguistics
- Conversation Analysis
- Conversation, Maxims of
- Conversational Implicature
- Cooperative Principle
- Coordination
- Copula
- Creoles
- Creoles, Grammatical Categories in
- Critical Periods
- Cross-Language Speech Perception and Production
- Cyberpragmatics
- Default Semantics
- Definiteness
- Dementia and Language
- Dené-Yeniseian Hypothesis, The
- Dependencies
- Dependencies, Long Distance
- Derivational Morphology
- Determiners
- Dialectology
- Dialogue
- Diglossia
- Disfluency
- Distinctive Features
- Dravidian Languages
- Ellipsis
- Endangered Languages
- English as a Lingua Franca
- English, Early Modern
- English, Old
- Ergativity
- Eskimo-Aleut
- Euphemisms and Dysphemisms
- Evidentials
- Exemplar-Based Models in Linguistics
- Existential
- Existential Wh-Constructions
- Experimental Linguistics
- Fieldwork
- Fieldwork, Sociolinguistic
- Finite State Languages
- First Language Attrition
- Formulaic Language
- Francoprovençal
- French Grammars
- Frisian
- Gabelentz, Georg von der
- Gender
- Genealogical Classification
- Generative Syntax
- Genetics and Language
- Gestures
- Grammar, Categorial
- Grammar, Construction
- Grammar, Descriptive
- Grammar, Functional Discourse
- Grammars, Phrase Structure
- Grammaticalization
- Harris, Zellig
- Heritage Languages
- History of Linguistics
- History of the English Language
- Hmong-Mien Languages
- Hokan Languages
- Honorifics
- Humor in Language
- Hungarian Vowel Harmony
- Iconicity
- Ideophones
- Idiolect
- Idiom and Phraseology
- Imperatives
- Indefiniteness
- Indo-European Etymology
- Inflected Infinitives
- Information Structure
- Innateness
- Interface Between Phonology and Phonetics
- Interjections
- Intonation
- IPA
- Irony
- Iroquoian Languages
- Islands
- Isolates, Language
- Jakobson, Roman
- Japanese Word Accent
- Jones, Daniel
- Juncture and Boundary
- Khoisan Languages
- Kiowa-Tanoan Languages
- Kra-Dai Languages
- Labov, William
- Language Acquisition
- Language and Law
- Language Contact
- Language Documentation
- Language, Embodiment and
- Language for Specific Purposes/Specialized Communication
- Language, Gender, and Sexuality
- Language Geography
- Language Ideologies and Language Attitudes
- Language in Autism Spectrum Disorders
- Language Nests
- Language Revitalization
- Language Shift
- Language Standardization
- Languages of Africa
- Languages of the Americas, Indigenous
- Languages of the World
- Learnability
- Lexemes
- Lexical Access, Cognitive Mechanisms for
- Lexical Semantics
- Lexical-Functional Grammar
- Lexicography
- Lexicography, Bilingual
- Linguistic Accommodation
- Linguistic Anthropology
- Linguistic Areas
- Linguistic Landscapes
- Linguistic Prescriptivism
- Linguistic Profiling and Language-Based Discrimination
- Linguistic Relativity
- Linguistics, Educational
- Listening, Second Language
- Literature and Linguistics
- Loanwords
- Machine Translation
- Maintenance, Language
- Mande Languages
- Markedness
- Mass-Count Distinction
- Mathematical Linguistics
- Mayan Languages
- Mental Health Disorders, Language in
- Mental Lexicon, The
- Mesoamerican Languages
- Metaphor
- Metathesis
- Metonymy
- Minority Languages
- Mixed Languages
- Mixe-Zoquean Languages
- Modification
- Mon-Khmer Languages
- Morphological Change
- Morphology
- Morphology, Blending in
- Morphology, Subtractive
- Movement
- Munda Languages
- Muskogean Languages
- Nasals and Nasalization
- Negation
- Niger-Congo Languages
- Non-Pama-Nyungan Languages
- Northeast Caucasian Languages
- Nostratic
- Number
- Numerals
- Oceanic Languages
- Papuan Languages
- Penutian Languages
- Philosophy of Language
- Phonetics
- Phonetics, Acoustic
- Phonetics, Articulatory
- Phonological Research, Psycholinguistic Methodology in
- Phonology
- Phonology, Computational
- Phonology, Early Child
- Pidgins
- Polarity
- Policy and Planning, Language
- Politeness in Language
- Polysemy
- Possessives, Acquisition of
- Pragmatics, Acquisition of
- Pragmatics, Cognitive
- Pragmatics, Computational
- Pragmatics, Experimental
- Pragmatics, Game Theory in
- Pragmatics, Historical
- Pragmatics, Second Language
- Prague Linguistic Circle, The
- Presupposition
- Pronouns
- Psycholinguistics
- Quechuan and Aymaran Languages
- Questions
- Reading, Second-Language
- Reciprocals
- Reduplication
- Reflexives and Reflexivity
- Register and Register Variation
- Relevance Theory
- Salish Languages
- Saussure, Ferdinand de
- Second Language Acquisition, Anaphora Resolution in
- Semantic Maps
- Semantic Roles
- Semantic-Pragmatic Change
- Semantics, Cognitive
- Sentence Processing in Monolingual and Bilingual Speakers
- Sign Language Linguistics
- Sociolinguistics
- Sociolinguistics, Variationist
- Sonority
- Sound Change
- South American Indian Languages
- Specific Language Impairment
- Speech Perception
- Speech Production
- Speech Synthesis
- Suppletion
- Switch-Reference
- Syllables
- Syncretism
- Synonymy
- Syntactic Change
- Syntactic Knowledge, Children’s Acquisition of
- Tense, Aspect, and Mood
- Text Mining
- Tone
- Tone Sandhi
- Topic
- Transcription
- Transitivity and Voice
- Translation
- Trubetzkoy, Nikolai
- Tucanoan Languages
- Tupian Languages
- Typology
- Usage-Based Linguistics
- Uto-Aztecan Languages
- Valency Theory
- Verbs, Serial
- Visual Word Recognition
- Vocabulary, Second Language
- Voice and Voice Quality
- Vowel Harmony
- Whitney, William Dwight
- Word Classes
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- Word Stress
- Writing, Second Language
- Writing Systems
- Yiddish
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