title: Discourse changes in early Alzheimer disease, mild cognitive impairment, and normal aging.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine the sensitivity of discourse gist measures to the early cognitive-linguistic changes in Alzheimer disease (AD) and in the preclinical stages. Differences in discourse abilities were examined in 25 cognitively normal adults, 24 adults with mild probable AD, and 20 adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) at gist and detail levels of discourse processing. The authors found that gist and detail levels of discourse processing were significantly impaired in persons with AD and MCI as compared with normal control subjects. Gist-level discourse processing abilities showed minimal overlap between cognitively normal control subjects and those with mild AD. Moreover, the majority of the persons with MCI performed in the range of AD on gist measures. These findings indicate that discourse gist measures hold promise as a diagnostic complement to enhance early detection of AD. Further studies are needed to determine how early the discourse gist deficits arise in AD.
authors.affiliation: Center for BrainHealth, University of Texas at Dallas, USA.
authors.forename: Sandra Bond
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Chapman
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zientz
authors.forename: Myron
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Weiner
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rosenberg
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Frawley
authors.forename: Mary Hope
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Burns
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D001288:Attention; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D011932:Reading; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013067:Speech Perception; D014705:Verbal Behavior