Abstract
The purpose of this case study was to examine the integrity of cognitive skills, language usage, and language structure components in a patient with corticobasal degeneration (CBD). CBD is a levadopa-nonresponsive, degenerative neurologic movement disorder that is generally accompanied by cognitive (frontal executive dysfunction, dementia) and linguistic (aphasia) disorders. However, no one has reported on social language usage deficits in cases of CBD. The reported frontal executive dysfunction found in CBD led us to expect social language usage deficits in the present case study. Consistent with the literature, the patient demonstrated motor, cognitive (severe apraxia, frontal executive deficits, dementia), and linguistic deficits (aphasia). However she also demonstrated significantly abnormal social language usage previously unreported in the literature.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank the patient and her husband who generously gave of their time and effort. We wish to thank neurologist Steven Nadeau, M.D., and neurology fellows Matthew Kodsi, M.D. and Jason Todd, M.D. for their consultation on this project. We also wish to thank Michael Okun, M.D. for his careful reading of the manuscript.
This project is based on work supported in part by a Predoctoral Fellowship in Speech-Language Pathology to N. Donovan by the Office of Research and Development Rehabilitation R&D Service, Department of Veterans Affairs and by VA RR&D Grant C2602V to A. Moore, and by NIH NIDCD Program Project Grant #DC003888-004. The information contained in this study has not been published elsewhere, nor has it been simultaneously submitted for peer review elsewhere. The authors have no conflict of interest.
Notes
SS = Scaled scores. SS have a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3. Z-scores have a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1.