title: Examining the value of lexical retrieval treatment in primary progressive aphasia: two positive cases.
abstract: Individuals with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) suffer a gradual decline in communication ability as a result of neurodegenerative disease. Language treatment shows promise as a means of addressing these difficulties but much remains to be learned with regard to the potential value of treatment across variants and stages of the disorder. We present two cases, one with semantic variant of PPA and the other with logopenic PPA, each of whom underwent treatment that was unique in its focus on training self-cueing strategies to engage residual language skills. Despite differing language profiles and levels of aphasia severity, each individual benefited from treatment and showed maintenance of gains as well as generalization to untrained lexical items. These cases highlight the potential for treatment to capitalize on spared cognitive and neural systems in individuals with PPA, improving current language function as well as potentially preserving targeted skills in the face of disease progression.
authors.affiliation: Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, University of California, 675 Nelson Rising Lane, Suite 190, San Francisco, CA 94158, United States; Communicative Disorders Program, Department of Special Education, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132, United States. Electronic address: mhenry@memory.ucsf.edu.
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Henry
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rising
authors.forename: A T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: DeMarco
authors.forename: B L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Gorno-Tempini
authors.forename: P M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Beeson
mesh_terms: D018888:Aphasia, Primary Progressive / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013070:Speech Therapy / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Lexical retrieval; Logopenic variant; Naming; Primary progressive aphasia; Rehabilitation; Semantic dementia; Treatment