Speech disorders in patients with cognitive impairment caused by neurogenerative diseases: An overview

Abstract

Background. The article describes the linguistic symptoms of cognitive impairment in patients with neurogenerative diseases of different origin. The speech of patients with neurogenerative diseases has not been analyzed in detail on different levels of language command. However, the numbers of people with neurogenerative diseases which provoke cognitive impairment and dementia increase every day. The linguistic signs may act as first symptoms of disease and thus help doctors to struggle with cognitive decline at early stages of neurogenerative diseases. Methods. We investigated the association between neurogenerative diseases and cognitive impairment at different stages defined according to Global Deterioration Scale. The results were obtained with the help of MRI data, specific tools of cognitive assessment (MoCA-test, MMSE, FAB), components of Alexander Luria's neuroliguistic tests and conversation analysis. We used the data from 58 patients with speech disorders associated with neurogenerative diseases. Results and discussion. Our findings further support the linguistic analysis of speech disorders that do not have stroke origin. The description of speech disorders caused by neurogenerative diseases is given at all linguistic levels, the results can be used in clinical work by neurologists, neuropsychologists and neurolinguists.