title: Category and letter fluency in semantic dementia, primary progressive aphasia, and Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: This study examined the impact of various degenerative dementias on access to semantic knowledge and the status of semantic representations. Patients with semantic dementia, primary progressive aphasia, and Alzheimer's disease were compared with elderly controls on tasks of category and letter fluency, with number of words generated, mean lexical frequency and errors recorded. The findings are consistent with the view that category and letter fluency rely on both common and unique cognitive processes. Fluency tasks, with the richness of data obtained, are valuable in distinguishing different dementia syndromes from one another.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neurology, St. Joseph's Hospital, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont., Canada. camarc2@uky.edu
authors.forename: Cecile A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Marczinski
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kertesz
mesh_terms: D017668:Age of Onset; D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D001037:Aphasia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003710:Demography; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012660:Semantics; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014705:Verbal Behavior