Billy R. Hammond1, L. Stephen Miller1,3, 1University of Georgia, Athens,. GA, USA; 2Abbott Nutrition, Columbus, OH, USA; 3Bio-Imaging Research. Center ...
Poster Presentations: P1
We translated the test “partial knowledge of abstract words” into Thai and investigated the occurrence of partial knowledge effects in the conceptual domain of abstract words in individuals with frontotemporal dementia-semantic dementia (FTD-SD), Alzheimer disease (AD), and other dementia. Twelve FTD-SD, 14 AD, 7 non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment (non-am MCI), 3 other dementia, and 10 healthy controls were examined with 3 level synonym comprehension abstract word test. They include antonym distractors, distant distractors, and close distractors. Results: Mean scores of the antonym distractors, distant distractors, and close distractors of dementia groups and controls were displayed in figure 1. All dementia groups showed weaker performance on choosing distant distractors and close distractors, which requires a fine specification of word meaning, than controls. The impairment of partial knowledge of abstract words was greater in those with SD than AD compared to controls (SD: antonym distractor SE¼3.43 p¼0.034, distant distractors SE¼3.36, p¼0.001, close distractor SE ¼2.69, p¼0.002; AD: antonym distractor SE¼3.31, p¼0.03, distant distractors SE¼3.25, p¼0.005, close distractor SE¼2.6, p¼0.016). We found that 3 subjects with Parkinson dementia and vascular dementia performed worst. However, the number of subjects in this group was small. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that a degraded conceptual knowledge of abstract words is a phenomenon in neurodegenerative diseases and vascular dementia. Detailed information of abstract words is more affected than broad-sense information.
relevant in daily life but is affected in those with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (Giannakopoulos et al, 2000; Langlois et.al., 2009). However, due to the paucity of assessment measures with locally appropriate stimuli, face naming abilities are not explored in the local context. This study aims to explore the utility of the Singapore Famous Faces test (SFFT) in discriminating between those with cognitive impairments from those without. Methods: The SFFT, a locally developed test that consists of 56 items of famous local entertainers, politicians, criminal/ law and sportspersons represented from the past 6 decades, was administered to 9 patients with AD, 7 with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and 11 normal controls. Scores across the 56 items were totalled to form an overall score, and subscores were tabulated by summing up items from each of the decades. ANOVA was used to compare the face-recognition abilities of the 3 groups, and their performances across the 6 decades. Results: One-way ANOVA showed a general difference in overall face recognition abilities across groups [F (2, 24) ¼12.40, p
