title: Word list generation performance in Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia.
abstract: Word list generation (WLG) was examined among clinical samples of individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) (n = 73) or ischemic vascular dementia (IVD) (n = 85), equivalent in age, education, current and estimated premorbid intellectual functioning, and proportion of men and women. The AD group performed significantly better than did the IVD group on lexical WLG, and a trend was observed indicating superior performance among the IVD group on categorical WLG. Within-groups, comparisons of group means, and profile analyses of individual performance patterns all indicated that persons with AD demonstrated a lexical > categorical pattern significantly more often than did IVD participants. The absolute difference in average performance between the AD and IVD groups on lexical and categorical WLG was small; the findings, however, generally support the clinical utility of the lexical > categorical WLG pattern in the differential diagnosis of AD and IVD. The patterns of performance support the presence of relative impairment in semantic processing among the individuals with AD and global deficits in retrieval and processing speed in individuals with IVD.
authors.affiliation: Sunnyview Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, USA.
authors.forename: Quintin E
authors.initials: QE
authors.lastname: Poore
authors.forename: Lisa J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Rapport
authors.forename: Darren R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Fuerst
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Keenan
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D015140:Dementia, Vascular / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data