Micro and macro‐linguistic analysis of narrative discourse in Moroccan patients with Alzheimer’s Disease

Background The production of narrative discourse or connected speech implies dynamic and complex functions at different levels neuro-cognitive, micro (parts speech) macro-linguistic processing (cohesion coherence). Such are classically impaired in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Several studies have described these impairments European languages; however, no study has characterized them terms neuro-psycholinguistic patterns Arabic. Method We studied the sample six patients with moderate from Center Rabat. They orally picture cookies theft subtest (BDAE). meet clinical criteria for AD (McKhann, 2011). average age is 69 years (SD: 5.9; 61-77) education 13.6 2.3; 9-15), duration 5 (SD 2.09; 3-8). neuropsychological assessment been carried out MoCA (Montréal Cognitive Assessment), MIS (Memory Impairment screen), Fluency tasks Clock drawing test. Regarding analysis psycholinguistic variables, we used method which by Croisile (1996) Boschi et al (2017). Result neurolinguistic showed an impairment variables. effectiveness was clearly one most variables as well syntactic complexity majority patients. Cohesion lower than local global coherence. These performances revealed a pragmatic dysfunction part neuropsycho-linguistic profile our depending on their duration. However, micro-linguistic level, functional words verbs were produced oral description compared to nouns, adjectives adverbs. results might evoke hypothesis explicit linguistic knowledge involved intra inter-linguistic systems AD. Conclusion wide range cognitive-linguistic highlighted during cookie description, importance assessing Moroccan task added-value formal assessments follow-up cognitive decline