Kimberly D. Mueller|Rebecca L. Koscik|Lyn S. Turkstra|Sarah K. Riedeman|Asenath LaRue|Lindsay R. Clark|Bruce P. Hermann|Mark A. Sager|Sterling C. Johnson
Connected Language in Late Middle-Aged Adults at Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease
University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin–Madison|William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital|Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center
connected language often impaired among people alzheimers disease ad yet little known language difficulties first emerge path clinical diagnosis objective study determine whether individuals psychometric preclinical evidence amnestic mild cognitive impairment pmci showed deficits connected language measures participants 39 pmci 39 cognitively healthy ch adults drawn wisconsin registry alzheimers prevention matched age literacy sex participants completed connected language task described cookie theft picture boston diagnostic aphasia examination language samples analyzed across three language domains content syntactic complexity speech fluency paired ttests used compare ch pmci groups variables cohens effect sizes calculated comparison ch pmci groups differed significantly measures content eg ch group produced semantic units unique words larger idea density average pmci group picture description findings consistent previous retrospective studies showing semantic language differences adults autopsyconfirmed ad given comparisons cognitively healthy pmci individuals clinical mci diagnosis findings may represent subtle language difficulty spontaneous speech may predictive larger language changes time