Abstract

Objectives

This study applied the discourse task and related cognitive items of the Brief Test of Cognitive-Communication Disorders (BCCD) to normal, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and moderate dementia groups and compared the scores of each area. In addition, the cognitive functions affecting the discourse performance were investigated by group.

Participants

117 normal adults, 38 MCI, and 31 patients with moderate dementia (DEM) conducted BCCD, including discourse and cognitive items.

Design/setting

The discourse item included repeating an explanatory discourse, and the total discourse score was calculated by summing the scores for each of the four areas of coherence, cohesion, proposition, and pause. The cognitive areas of BCCD were attention, visuospatial ability, memory, organization, reasoning, problem-solving, and executive function. This study performed a one-way multivariate analysis of covariance to compare the scores of the three groups and multiple regression analysis determined the cognitive functions influencing the total discourse score.

Measurements

The discourse scores reporting differences among all groups were the pause and the total discourse scores, with the normal group showing a higher performance than the patient groups in the cohesion score and the DEM group in the propositions score, respectively. In addition, the cognitive functions affecting discourse performance were attention, organization, and problem-solving in the normal group, and organization and problem-solving in the MCI group.

Conclusions

Organizing information into a series of semantic units related to each other is necessary for coherent and efficient utterances, and the ability to correctly recognize the task and establish a strategy to grasp the core content is necessary for pragmatic language.

中文翻译：

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轻度认知障碍和痴呆的话语表现和相关认知功能：初步研究

摘要

目标

本研究将Brief Test of Cognitive-Communication Disorders (BCCD)的话语任务和相关认知项目应用于正常、轻度认知障碍(MCI)和中度痴呆组，并比较每个区域的得分。此外，还对影响话语表现的认知功能进行了分组调查。

参加者

117 名正常成人、38 名 MCI 和 31 名中度痴呆 (DEM) 患者进行了 BCCD，包括话语和认知项目。

设计/设定

话语项目包括重复解释性话语，话语总分是通过连贯、衔接、命题和停顿四个方面的得分相加计算得出的。BCCD 的认知领域是注意力、视觉空间能力、记忆、组织、推理、解决问题和执行功能。本研究进行了协方差的单向多变量分析来比较三组的得分，多元回归分析确定了影响总话语得分的认知功能。

测量

报告所有组间差异的话语分数是停顿和总话语分数，正常组在衔接分数和 DEM 组的命题分数上分别表现出比患者组更高的表现。此外，影响话语表现的认知功能在正常组是注意、组织和解决问题，而在MCI组是组织和解决问题。

结论

将信息组织成一系列相互关联的语义单元对于连贯高效的话语是必要的，而正确识别任务和建立策略以掌握核心内容的能力对于实用语言是必要的。