Emily LaBarge

Performance of normal elderly on the Boston naming test

The Boston Naming Test has enjoyed increasing use in many research studies since its introduction. However, there is little normative data on the age group above 60 years of age. This study presents data from a sample of 58 well-defined healthy elderly males and females between the ages of 60 and 85. In comparison with published normative data, our sample has higher means, smaller standard deviations, and narrower ranges. These results suggest that aging alone does not significantly alter recognition-cued word-finding ability as defined by the Boston Naming Test. Also there is remarkably consistent performance throughout our age range.

Aphasia, family history, and the longitudinal course of senile dementia of the Alzheimer type.

Aphasia, was present in a majority of subjects in a longitudinal study of 43 subjects with senile dementia of the Alzheimer type. Aphasic subjects had a more rapidly progressive course but a lower prevalence of familial cases than the study group, other study groups, or the nonaphasic subjects. Conversely, the lack of aphasia was associated with a higher prevalence of familial cases and a slower rate of progression. It is concluded that senile dementia of the Alzheimer type is a heterogeneous disorder in which the presence of aphasia early in the course signifies a nonfamilial, rapidly progressive variety of illness.

Predictive value of the Boston naming test in mild senile dementia of the alzheimer type

The prognostic implications of anomia were examined in a group of subjects with mild senile dementia of the Alzheimer type. Anomia was found to correlate with a more rapidly progressive course of illness. A subjects age did not account for the degree of anomia. Duration of illness was not correlated with the degree of anomia or with severity of dementia. The presence of anomia in a subject with mild senile dementia of the Alzheimer type appears to indicate a more rapidly progressive course.

An analysis of confrontation naming errors in senile dementia of the Alzheimer type.

Confrontation naming performance, as reflected by the Boston Naming Test, was examined in 25 healthy elderly adults and 49 elderly adults with very mild (n = 25) or mild senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT). Errors were classified within 17 different categories that differentially reflected perceptual, lexical, and semantic mechanisms. The results of these analyses suggest that, early in SDAT, there is a loss of lexical information and some loss in specific semantic attributes. As the disease progresses, however, there is increasing involvement of core semantic structures. These observations were supported by analyses of linguistically related errors, four-alternative forcedchoice recognition performance, and correlational analyses between performance on the Boston Naming Test and 12 standard psychometric tests.

Oral language and alzheimer's disease: A reduction in syntactic complexity

Abstract Transcripts of interviews with 117 adults undergoing examination for possible Alzheimers disease were analyzed. the length, fluency, semantic content, and syntactic complexity of the transcripts varied with the severity of dementia. Although there was a marked increase in the production of sentence fragments with dementia severity, approximately 60% of the utterances produced by the mildly demented adults were grammatically well formed, compared with 69% of those produced by the nondemented adults. the grammatical utterances of the mildly demented adults were shorter and syntactically simpler than those produced by the nondemented adults. These results add to the growing literature suggesting a relative preservation of some psycholinguistic functions in demented individuals.

Birth order and maternal age effect in dementia of the Alzheimer type

Birth order and maternal age were unrelated to dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) in a study of 42 probands with clinically diagnosed DAT and 42 age-matched control subjects. Mean birth order in both groups did not differ significantly from the general population. The mean maternal age for the DAT probands was neither significantly different from that for the controls nor from that for the 1920 U.S. Caucasian population. Since the diagnostic criteria for the DAT group were only clinical, an additional 14 probands with DAT confirmed by autopsy were studied. Mean maternal age did not differ significantly in this group from the controls, the general population, or the clinically diagnosed DAT group. It was concluded that maternal age and birth order bear no special relationship to DAT in this sample.

Dementia in the elderly: An education model including information, management, and counselling

The number of elderly people in the United States who have dementia is increasing because there are proportionately more older adults in the total population. Because dementia causes progressive deterioration in memory and reasoning, families of individuals with dementia experience emotional, physical, and economic burdens. It is necessary to educate and counsel healthcare professionals and caregivers to assure appropriate care for the patient with Alzheimers disease.