Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Oct;25(10):1679-85.
doi: 10.1017/S1041610213000781. Epub 2013 Jun 7.

Speech and orofacial apraxias in Alzheimer's disease

Maysa Luchesi Cera  1 , Karin Zazo Ortiz, Paulo Henrique Ferreira Bertolucci, Thaís Soares Cianciarullo Minett
Affiliations
Free PMC article

Speech and orofacial apraxias in Alzheimer's disease

Maysa Luchesi Cera et al. Int Psychogeriatr. 2013 Oct.
Free PMC article

Erratum in

  • Int Psychogeriatr. 2013 Oct;25(10):1686

Abstract

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects not only memory but also other cognitive functions, such as orientation, language, praxis, attention, visual perception, or executive function. Most studies on oral communication in AD focus on aphasia; however, speech and orofacial apraxias are also present in these patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of speech and orofacial apraxias in patients with AD with the hypothesis that apraxia severity is strongly correlated with disease severity.

Methods: Ninety participants in different stages of AD (mild, moderate, and severe) underwent the following assessments: Clinical Dementia Rating, Mini-Mental State Examination, Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, a specific speech and orofacial praxis assessment, and the oral agility subtest of the Boston diagnostic aphasia examination.

Results: The mean age was 80.2 ± 7.2 years and 73% were women. Patients with AD had significantly lower scores than normal controls for speech praxis (mean difference=-2.9, 95% confidence interval (CI)=-3.3 to -2.4) and orofacial praxis (mean difference=-4.9, 95% CI=-5.4 to -4.3). Dementia severity was significantly associated with orofacial apraxia severity (moderate AD: β =-19.63, p= 0.011; and severe AD: β =-51.68, p < 0.001) and speech apraxia severity (moderate AD: β = 7.07, p = 0.001; and severe AD: β =8.16, p < 0.001).

Conclusion: Speech and orofacial apraxias were evident in patients with AD and became more pronounced with disease progression.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Akbarzadeh T. M. and Moshtagh-Khorasani M. (2007). A hierarchical fuzzy rule-based approach to aphasia diagnosis. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 40, 465–475 - PubMed
    1. Baron J. C. et al. (2001). In vivo mapping of gray matter loss with voxel-based morphometry in mild Alzheimer's disease. Neuroimage, 14, 298–309 - PubMed
    1. Belleville S., Peretz I. and Malenfant D. (1996). Examination of the working memory components in normal aging and in dementia of the Alzheimer type. Neuropsychologia, 34, 195–207 - PubMed
    1. Birks J. (2006). Cholinesterase inhibitors for Alzheimer's disease. Cochrane Database of Sysematic Reviews, CD005593. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Broussolle E. et al. (1996). Slowly progressive anarthria with late anterior opercular syndrome: a variant form of frontal cortical atrophy syndromes. Journal of the Neurological Sciences, 144, 44–58 - PubMed

Publication types