Dementia Flashcards
What is dementia?
…a clinical syndrome caused by a wide range of
diseases that affect the brain. Its core feature is a
decline in cognition
State that at least three of the following areas must be
involved in Dementia: Cummings and Benson (2003)
Language Memory Visuospatial skills Emotion or personality Cognition
What are some causes of dementia?
Sub-cortical dementias
- Parkinson’s disease
- Wilson’s disease
- Huntington’s disease
- Progressive supranuclear palsy
Other causes Intra-cranial conditions (tumours, hydrocephalus) Head injury Korsakoff’s / Wernicke’s syndrome Alcohol-induced dementia Chronic drug use Boxers’ syndrome (dementia pugilistica)
Infectious diseases
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Neurosyphilis
AIDS dementia complex
What does cortical mean?
Cortical = language
What does Sub-cortical mean?
Sub-cortical = speech
What are some communication difficulties in dementia?
- Semantics affected
- Pragmatics affected
- Articulation, phonology and syntax relatively unaffected (until late stages)
What semantic errors are common?
Initially naming deficits, empty
speech, moving onto comprehension
difficulties and lack of output
What are the semantic errors caused by?
attention deficits,
perceptual (not verbal) deficits, poor
lexical access, disorganised semantic
representations.
What pragmatic errors are common?
Irrelevant speech, lack of reference, not considering needs of listener, inappropriate topic change, lack
of initiation, poor coherence, cohesion.
In early stages can speak (at speech and
language level) but cannot communicate
(no purpose, lacking content)
What are pragmatic errors caused by?
Linguistic knowledge most dependent on cognition
What syntactic errors are common?
Generally intact Some difficulties as in normal ageing, e.g. sentence fragments, unfinished sentences Difficulties in the late stages of dementia
What phonology errors are common?
Generally intact until late stages
Which elements of language are less common to be affected?
Articulation, phonology and syntax
What are the main impacts on the family?
Fear, worry, relief, work
What are the main impacts on society?
NHS, money, police, job loss due to care
What are the clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease?
Deficit in episodic memory Communicative function Rapidly forgetting recently acquired information Semantics and pragmatics affected early Longer hesitations Slower speech rate Writing more affected than oral language
What are the clinical symptoms of Vascular Dementia?
Caused by cerebral vascular disease
No typical linguistic communication profile due to the various types and possible areas affected in the brain
What are the clinical symptoms of Dementia with Lewy bodies?
Insidious onset Round lumps of protein are found in the cell process of neurons Memory executive functions Attention Disease progression depression Behavioural problems
What are the clinical symptoms of Frontotemporal dementia?
Disinhibition
Apathy
Occasional aggressive behaviour
Echololia- repetiton of someone elses speech
Supranuclear palsy and motor neurone disease
What is PPA?
Primary Progressive Aphasia
A language variant of frontotemporal dementia
cognitive/behavourial problems
What is the impact of dementia on the individual?
Isolated Vulnerable Lack of control Overwhelming Unable to form and maintain relationships Scary
