Impaired verb fluency: a sign of mild cognitive impairment

Per Ostberg; Sven-Erik Fernaeus; Ke Hellström; Nenad Bogdanović; Lars-Olof Wahlund

doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2005.01.010

Impaired verb fluency: a sign of mild cognitive impairment

Brain Lang. 2005 Nov;95(2):273-9. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2005.01.010.

Authors

Per Ostberg¹, Sven-Erik Fernaeus, Ke Hellström, Nenad Bogdanović, Lars-Olof Wahlund

Affiliation

¹ Section for Clinical Geriatrics, Neurotec Department, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. [email protected]

PMID: 16246735
DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2005.01.010

Abstract

We assessed verb fluency vs. noun and letter-based fluency in 199 subjects referred for cognitive complaints including Subjective Cognitive Impairment, Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Alzheimer's disease. ANCOVAs and factor analyses identified verb, noun, and letter-based fluency as distinct tasks. Verb fluency performance in Mild Cognitive Impairment differed significantly from Subjective Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Reduced verb fluency thus appears to be a linguistic marker for incipient dementia. One possibility is that the verb fluency deficit in Mild Cognitive Impairment results from degenerative processes known to occur in the parahippocampal region.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Age Factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Alzheimer Disease / diagnosis
Alzheimer Disease / physiopathology*
Cognition Disorders / diagnosis
Cognition Disorders / physiopathology*
Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Parahippocampal Gyrus / physiopathology
Parkinson Disease / diagnosis
Parkinson Disease / physiopathology*
Semantics*
Severity of Illness Index
Sex Factors