CPLOL Congress 2012 - Abstracts
19.3 – Oral presentation – E
Cognitive-linguistic disorders in Parkinson’s disease disentangled by using verbal fluency methods
Katrien Colman, Janneke Koerts, Hester Meijer, Lara Tucha, Oliver Tucha
University of Groningen
Groningen, Netherlands
Background
Traditionally, verbal fluency tests are described as easy-to-apply measurements to assess aspects of
executive functioning and semantic processing ability or word knowledge in Parkinson’s disease (PD)
patients. However, various other cognitive functions may also impair performance on verbal fluency
tests in the early as well as late stages of PD. The goal of this study is first to apply an advanced
scoring system to performance on the verbal fluency tests, second to link verbal fluency scores to
measured aspects of executive functioning, psychomotor speed and memory and third to compare
performances in different stages of the disease.
Method(s)
Eighty-eight PD patients and 65 healthy participants were included in this study. All were assessed
with semantic and phonemic fluency tests and tests of executive functions, memory and
psychomotor speed.
Result(s)
PD patients produced significantly fewer words on both semantic and phonemic fluency tests than
healthy participants. However, mild and moderate PD patients differed significantly with regard to
the size of the largest cluster and the number of intra-dimensional shifts on the phonemic fluency
tests. Furthermore, in the mild stages of the disease memory and psychomotor speed predicted the
performance on both verbal fluency tests, whereas in the moderate stages of the disease cognitive
flexibility and psychomotor speed predicted the performance on both verbal fluency tests.
Conclusion
Different cognitive processes underlie verbal fluency of PD patients in different stages of the disease.
Verbal fluency tests assess memory and psychomotor speed in addition to executive functions.