Comparing Verb and Object Naming Between Patients With Parkinson Disease and Patients With Cortical Stroke

Objectives: Based on recent studies, verb naming is more impaired than noun naming in patients with Parkinson Disease (PD). Noun and verb retrieval problems has been well documented in patients with cortical damage. To explore the possible contribution of cortex and subcortex areas in word finding test performance, we studied verb and object naming in patients with cortical and subcortical lesions. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, object and verb naming were examined in two patient groups, including patients with PD and patients with cortical stroke. The healthy control group was also matched on age and education with the patients. The non-parametric tests were performed to investigate the obtained data.  Results: Both the PD patients and patients with cortical stroke presented a significant impairment in their capacity to name objects and verbs, compared to the healthy controls (P<0.05). Both patient groups did not statistically perform differently on these tasks (P>0.05). There was also a significant difference between verb naming and object naming in both patient groups (P<0.001).  Discussion: The similarity between two patient groups and the difference between them and healthy individuals in language output, can denote the role of both cortical regions and basal ganglia in the language processing.