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Linguistic abilities in major vascular cognitive impairment: a comparative study with Alzheimer’s disease

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Abstract

We assessed the linguistic abilities of multi-infarct (cortical) dementia and subcortical ischemic vascular dementia (VaD) patients and compared the linguistic performance of VaD and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) patients. A total of 23 VaD patients, 20 mild AD patients, and 31 controls participated in the study. All were evaluated using the Arizona Battery for Communication Disorders of Dementia (ABCD). Neuropsychological testing was performed to ascertain that VaD and AD patients had comparable cognitive performance. Both dementia groups performed more poorly than controls in the ABCD measures, except for the comparative question subtest. Comparison between VaD and AD patients showed statistically significant differences only in the confrontation naming subtest (p < 0.05), where paraphasias and visual errors were the most prevalent. AD patients showed a trend towards more circumlocution errors than VaD patients (p = 0.0483). When compared to controls, linguistic abilities of VaD patients were impaired in all measures of linguistic expression and linguistic comprehension, except for the comparative question subtest. Linguistic differences between VaD and AD patients were observed only in the confrontation naming subtest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Cognitive Disorders Reference Center (CEREDIC), Hospital das Clinicas, University of São Paulo, Rua Dr. Eneas de Carvalho Aguiar, 255, 5th floor, São Paulo, SP, 05403-000, Brazil

    Maria Isabel D’Avila Freitas, Claudia S. Porto, Maira O. Oliveira, Sonia M. D. Brucki, Leticia L. Mansur, Ricardo Nitrini & Marcia Radanovic

  2. Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Trindade Campus, Florianopolis, SC, 88040-970, Brazil

    Maria Isabel D’Avila Freitas

  3. Department of Physiotherapy, Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Leticia L. Mansur

Authors
  1. Maria Isabel D’Avila Freitas
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  2. Claudia S. Porto
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  3. Maira O. Oliveira
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  4. Sonia M. D. Brucki
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Correspondence to Maria Isabel D’Avila Freitas.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in the study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Sao Paulo Medical School Research Ethics Committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 4.

Table 4 Performance of subjects in the neuropsychological evaluation by diagnostic group
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Appendix 2

See Table 5.

Table 5 Performance of VaD patients in the ABCD by subgroup (SIVaD vs. MID)
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Freitas, M.I.D., Porto, C.S., Oliveira, M.O. et al. Linguistic abilities in major vascular cognitive impairment: a comparative study with Alzheimer’s disease. Acta Neurol Belg 118, 465–473 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13760-018-0977-x

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