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Verbal and non‐verbal auditory comprehension tests in early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease
Author(s) -
Fang Ting,
Wu Zhong ting,
Xiao Jun,
Ye Fang
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1002/alz.037358
Subject(s) - categorization , audiology , comprehension , psychology , cognition , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , medicine , linguistics , psychiatry , philosophy
Background The purposes of this study are to correlate auditory comprehension impairment with AD early development and to evaluate the verbal and non‐verbal auditory comprehension tests for early diagnosis of AD. Method The 24 healthy controls (HC), 30 amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and 27 mild AD (mAD) patients were recruited. The verbal (yes‐or‐no question, listening identification and oral instruction) and non‐verbal (sound categorization, emotion judgment, beat judgement, sound naming) auditory comprehension tests were adapted to evaluate the diagnostic ability of auditory comprehension. The receiver operating characteristic curves were used to analyze the diagnostic values. Result All tests except for yes‐or‐no question presented moderate or higher level of positive correlation in the scores with Mini‐Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA), among which sound naming and oral instruction were the best. Statistical analysis identified a significant difference of sound naming and verbal auditory comprehension tests in aMCI group compared with the HC group. In addition, the mAD group exhibited statistically significant difference in sound categorization, sound naming, beat judgement and oral instruction when compared with the other two groups. Oral instruction sound categorization and naming benefited better in early diagnosis than the other subtests. Conclusion The impairments of auditory comprehension emerge early in AD, or even aMCI patients, which worsen with the progression of the disease. The tests of sound categorization, sound naming and oral instruction exhibited better discriminative values, which might be beneficial for the early diagnosis of AD.