Lexical and semantic fluency discrepancy scores in aMCI and early Alzheimer's disease

Jane A. Lonie, Lucie L. Herrmann, Kevin M. Tierney, Claire Donaghey, Ronan O'Carroll, Andrew Lee, Klaus P. Ebmeier

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

49 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Episodic memory is compromised in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), but lesser deficits in other cognitive domains are also commonly observed and may be helpful in identifying this group. The relative difference in performance on lexical and semantic fluency tasks may be a sensitive and specific measure in aMCI and early Alzheimer's disease (AD). We compared four groups of participants, 35 early AD, 47 aMCI, 24 healthy controls, and 18 depressive out-patient controls, on semantic and lexical fluency as well as other neuropsychological tests. Early AD and aMCI patients showed a distinct pattern of semantic impairment in the two fluency measures compared with the healthy and depressive controls. The findings implicate early failure of the semantic memory system in aMCI and AD and suggest that consideration of the discrepancy in performance on semantic and lexical fluency measures may help in the early identification of AD.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)79-92
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Neuropsychology
Volume3
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2009
Externally publishedYes

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Lexical and semantic fluency discrepancy scores in aMCI and early Alzheimer's disease'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this