A potential protective effect in multilingual patients with semantic dementia: two case reports of patients speaking Taiwanese and Japanese.
نویسندگان
چکیده
PURPOSE Several reports have suggested that multilingualism has a protective effect against semantic dementia. Here, we provide further evidence for this effect. CASE REPORTS FIRST The patient was a 75-year-old right-handed Taiwanese woman who had retired after working as a tailor. She was able to speak Taiwanese, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese fluently until 5 years ago. She gradually developed symptoms of profound anomia and difficulty with word-finding. Her mother tongue was Taiwanese and she had learned Japanese as her first symbolized language. She had used Mandarin Chinese for most of her life, but depended on Japanese to read and write (such as reading a newspaper and keeping accounts). However, she could now speak only very simple Taiwanese and Japanese, and could recognize only simple Japanese characters. SECOND: The patient was a 62-year-old right-handed man who had worked as an ironworker. He could speak Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese fluently until 5 years ago. His mother tongue was Taiwanese. After 5 years of language deterioration, he was unable to communicate with his family members or recognize any characters, including numbers. SPECT RESULTS: Brain perfusion ECD SPECT (Tc-99m-ethyl cysteinate dimer single-photon emission computed tomography) showed less perfusion in the multilingual patient (Case #1) than in the bilingual patient (Case #2). Neuropsychological tests also demonstrated a slower rate of degeneration in the multilingual patient. CONCLUSION We speculate that reading and writing in Japanese had a greater impact on the semantic system in Case #1. Thus, this patient showed relatively less degeneration or functional inactivity, as shown by perfusion in the frontal lobe, and this might be due to the persistent activation involved in multilingualism.
منابع مشابه
Semantic Feature Analysis Treatment for Anomia of Two Nonfluent Persian-Speaking Aphasic Patients
Objectives: Semantic Feature Analysis was designed to improve lexical retrieval of aphasic patients via activation of semantic networks of the words. In this approach, the anomic patients are cured with semantic information to assist oral naming. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Semantic Feature Analysis treatment on anomia of two nonfluent aphasic patients. Methods: A...
متن کاملComparison of visual evoked potential changes in patients with alzheimer, vascular dementia and minimal cognitive Impairment with healthy people: a case-control study
Background: Alzheimer dementia as the most common cause of dementia is a chronic, progressive, irreversible and incurable disease. The second most common cause of dementia after Alzheimer is vascular dementia. One of the systems involved in dementia is the visuospatial system and visual evoked potential (VEP) can be one of the diagnostic methods for this disease. Therefore, the present study ai...
متن کاملComparative Effectiveness of Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA) and Phonological Components Analysis (PCA) for Anomia Treatment in Persian Speaking Patients With Aphasia
Objectives: Anomia is one of the most common and persistent symptoms of aphasia. Although treatments of anomia usually focus on semantic and/or phonological levels, which both have been demonstrated to be effective, the relationship between the underlying functional deficit in naming and response to a particular treatment approach remains unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the rela...
متن کاملThe Analysis of Semantic Field in Persian-Speaking Patients With Wernicke’s Aphasia
Objectives: Wernicke’s aphasia is one of the most prominent focal brain deficits affecting the comprehension abilities of patients while preserving their production abilities. Although a lot of studies in different languages have been conducted to analyze the nature of this deficit, still some controversies exist in this regard. While some research studies attribute this defect to a performance...
متن کاملSemantic Processing Ability in Persian-Speaking Alzheimer’s Patients
Objectives: This paper aims to explore whether the Persian-speaking patients of different stages, ranging from mild to moderate, have a deficit in semantic processing by comparing the performance of Alzheimer’s patients with that of the healthy individuals. Methods: The subjects of both the groups of Alzheimer’s patients and healthy control were matched for age, the state of monoli...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید
ثبت ناماگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید
ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- Acta neurologica Taiwanica
دوره 21 1 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2012