Comparing Individuals With PPA to Individuals With AD: Cognitive and Linguistic Profiles

Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a degenerative condition characterized by the progressive loss of language function. In PPA, aphasia most prominent deficit at onset. On other hand, memory deficits are hallmark Alzheimer's disease (AD). The first aim study was to establish differences on neuropsychological testing and connected speech production between Greek-speaking individuals with AD PPA. second investigate executive involvement in two conditions. Ten PPA 9 took part comprehensive cognitive-linguistic evaluation. Fifteen demographically matched neurologically healthy adults served as controls. Participants were evaluated using battery measures. Quantitative analysis acoustic performed calculate narrative temporal measures participants' speech. differed significantly from participants linguistic They worse long frequent sentences' subtest Sentence Repetition Test they produced fewer unique words picture description. also shorter, less elaborated sentences, made more phonological errors. groups did not differ memory, executive, visuospatial semantic composite Compared neurotypical adults, impaired exhibited lexical retrieval difficulties, well difficulties tasks an increased processing load. within normal limits delay conditions episodic However, too tasks, especially for short-term verbal fluency. errors, difficulty repeating simple short sentences has differentiated only controls but AD. No single measure could differentiate group groups. These findings should be interpreted caution considering small sample size.