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P2‐082: Discourse analysis of Alzheimer's disease patients: From the lexicon to discourse
Author(s) -
Alegria Renne P.,
Ferreira Ricardo B.,
Marques Rita C.G.,
Bottino Cassio M.C.,
Nogueira Maria I.
Publication year - 2010
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 - 10.1016/j.jalz.2010.05.1128
Subject(s) - dementia , vocabulary , psychology , lexicon , disease , cognition , population , medicine , developmental psychology , linguistics , gerontology , psychiatry , pathology , philosophy , environmental health
Background: Little attention has been given to the population with Alzheimer’s disease concerning the sociolinguistic underpinnings of their discourses. Language performance research has been the focus recently, especially for advancing our understanding of the multiple cognitive and sociolinguistic influences on the patients with dementia. Objective: to demonstrate the sociolinguistic underpinnings of Alzheimer’s disease patients Methods: The participants for this study were eight Alzheimer’s disease patients and six controls. The patients were four men and four women aged 80 and older, and the controls were three male and three female, aged 75 and older.All the patients were from PROTEROld Age Program ambulatory care of the Institute of Psychiatry of the School of Medicine of the University of São Paulo. The controls were their caregivers and/or relatives. The patients and controls had 4 to 11 years of education, their Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE) scores 13 to 30. The controls were also evaluated by other scales such as SRQ-20.Their discursive performances were recorded and analyzed by the computational tool Stablex, based on mathematical-statistical-computer assisted program which mainly distinguish the results of preferential, basic and differential vocabulary. Results: The sociolinguistic influences of the discourses of the patients are not necessarily destroyed compared to the discourse of the control subjects. The program Stablex shows that preferential vocabulary is constituted of the thematic vocabulary and the lexical components of more sociolinguistic frequency in the discourses. The patients produced more preferential words than the controls and they were shown to be statistically significant. The patients preserve more words with ideological, historical and cultural meanings Conclusions: Assessing the discourse performance of patients with Alzheimer’s disease provides opportunities to unravel the connections and changes among language, communication and behavior. For patients with dementia, analysis of sociolinguistic discourse is an access for a better communication with their caregivers.