TY - JOUR
T1 - Semantic Memory in Alzheimer's Disease
T2 - An Analysis of Category Fluency
AU - Binetti, Giuliano
AU - Magni, Eugenio
AU - Cappa, Stefano F.
AU - Padovani, Alessandro
AU - Bianchetti, Angelo
AU - Trabucchi, Marco
PY - 1995/2/1
Y1 - 1995/2/1
N2 - In order to study the strategies of access to semantic knowledge and the status of semantic representation, we analyzed the performance in a semantic fluency task (Animal naming) of 70 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD), including 40 mild AD patients and 30 moderate-severe AD patients, and 35 matched elderly normal control subjects. The total amount of words produced, their lexical frequency, the number and type of errors, as well as the presence and the type of clusters of related animal names were recorded. AD patients produced less animal exemplars than controls. In addition to a lower total number of clusters, the AD patients showed a strong limitation in clusters’ selection, producing a limited number of different clusters. While normal subjects produced several different clusters, only farm animals were clustered by AD patients. When the total amount of words was considered, the mean lexical frequency was higher in the AD group. On the other hand, the words produced within clusters were comparable in terms of lexical frequency and number. These data confirm the impairment of AD patients in category fluency tasks, and suggest a degradation of semantic knowledge as the most likely underlying mechanism.
AB - In order to study the strategies of access to semantic knowledge and the status of semantic representation, we analyzed the performance in a semantic fluency task (Animal naming) of 70 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD), including 40 mild AD patients and 30 moderate-severe AD patients, and 35 matched elderly normal control subjects. The total amount of words produced, their lexical frequency, the number and type of errors, as well as the presence and the type of clusters of related animal names were recorded. AD patients produced less animal exemplars than controls. In addition to a lower total number of clusters, the AD patients showed a strong limitation in clusters’ selection, producing a limited number of different clusters. While normal subjects produced several different clusters, only farm animals were clustered by AD patients. When the total amount of words was considered, the mean lexical frequency was higher in the AD group. On the other hand, the words produced within clusters were comparable in terms of lexical frequency and number. These data confirm the impairment of AD patients in category fluency tasks, and suggest a degradation of semantic knowledge as the most likely underlying mechanism.
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U2 - 10.1080/13803399508406584
DO - 10.1080/13803399508406584
M3 - Article
C2 - 7608305
AN - SCOPUS:0028954023
VL - 17
SP - 82
EP - 89
JO - Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology
JF - Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology
SN - 1380-3395
IS - 1
ER -