Linguistic symptoms in dementia of Alzheimer type and their relation to linguistic symptoms of aphasia

Abstract

This paper gives a survey of linguistic and linguistically relevant symptoms in dementia of Alzheimer type (DAT), suggests diagnostic methods for evaluating these symptoms and discusses differentiation of symptoms of DAT from symptoms of aphasia. Literature on “dementia and aphasia” and “Alzheimer's disease and aphasia” published in the period 1981-May 1993, totally 380 articles, was consulted. Tasks for investigation of linguistic and linguistically relevant symptoms of DAT were produced or chosen from existing tests and grouped according to different aspects of linguistic abilities. Pragmatics, general behaviour, progression, history of illness, memory disorders and visuospatial disorders, together with the total picture of the patient's different linguistic and linguistically relevant abilities can give a fairly good differentiation from aphasia.

Key Words:

• dementia of Alzheimer type (DAT
• language disorder
• aphasia.