Metaphor Comprehension Deficits in Alzheimerʼs Disease Patients

• Fujimoto Norimasa

  Department of Rehabilitation, Kurashiki Heisei Hospital.

• Nakamura Hikaru

  Graduate School of Health and Welfare Science, Okayama Prefectural University

• Wakutani Yosuke

  Department of Neurology, Kurashiki Heisei Hospital

• Tsuda Tetsuya

  Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Faculty of Health and Welfare, Prefectural University of Hiroshima

• Kyobayashi Yukiko

  Graduate School of Health and Welfare Science, Okayama Prefectural University

Bibliographic Information

Other Title

• アルツハイマー病における比喩理解の障害

Abstract

  The metaphor comprehension task was administered in 20 probable Alzheimerʼs disease patients with mild to moderate dementia (AD group) . We selected 30 low-familiarity simile sentences. For each sentence, the subjects were asked to choose one written statement that best represented its meaning from four choices (Fujimoto et al. 2016) . The scores of the task and of the Token Test (TT) were compared with those of 20 healthy elderly (elderly group) or 15 aphasic patients (aphasic group) . In addition, correlations between the scores of the task and those of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) or the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) were analyzed for the AD group. On the metaphor comprehension task, the AD group exhibited significantly lower scores than the control group, but the difference between the AD and the aphasic group was not significant. On the TT, the AD group exhibited significantly lower scores than the control group, but it exhibited significantly higher scores than the aphasic group. The scores of the metaphor comprehension task in the AD group significantly correlated with the total scores of the MMSE. The scores of “attention and calculation” domain and “writing” on the MMSE and “affinity” and “word fluency” on the FAB significantly correlated with the scores of the metaphor comprehension task. The nature of disorders of metaphor comprehension in Alzheimerʼs disease may differ from those of aphasia, and deficits of executive function and semantic memory may affect such disorders.

Journal

• Higher Brain Function Research

  Higher Brain Function Research 37 (2), 205-211, 2017-06-30

  Japan Society for Higher Brain Dysfunction

Keywords

• Alzheimerʼs disease, aphasia, metaphor, pragmatics

Details

• CRID: 1390001288041596416
• NII Article ID: 130007387988
• DOI: 10.2496/hbfr.37.205
• ISSN: 18806554
• ISSN: 13484818
• Web Site: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/hbfr/37/2/37_205/_pdf
• Web Site: https://search.jamas.or.jp/link/ui/2017334442
• Text Lang: ja
• Data Source:
  • JaLC
  • Crossref
  • CiNii Articles
  • KAKEN
• Abstract License Flag: Disallowed