Preventing Language Decline in Dementia

Overview

This study will establish factors fundamental to the improvement in communication and quality of life for people with dementia known as primary progressive aphasia (PPA). PPA is a type of dementia in which language declines but other cognitive skills (including memory) are preserved in the first several years after the onset. This makes those in the initial stages of PPA excellent candidates for treatment and creates a window of time (2-7 years) whereby they can lead independent lives with minimal support. However, currently, no communication therapy is available to people with PPA due to the progressive nature of the disorder and lack of awareness of available options for professionals willing to treat it. Participants with PPA in our study will receive two kinds of therapy for the words they cannot recall spontaneously, and will be trained to maintain them through social interaction. The type of training will be based on the most successful interventions the investigators provided to people with PPA in our previous work. The investigators expect that successful re-learning of forgotten words and practicing them in a group setting will facilitate retention of communication skills leading to greater personal independence and increased/maintained quality of life for people with PPA. Our study represents natural combination of two novel approaches for PPA that ultimately will lead to lower demands on the health care system.

The study will establish factors fundamental to the improvement in communication and quality of life for people with dementia known as primary progressive aphasia (PPA). PPA is a type of dementia in which language declines but other cognitive skills (including memory) are preserved in the first several years after the onset (see Mesulam 1982). This makes those in the initial stages of PPA excellent candidates for treatment and creates a window of time (2-7 years) whereby PPA individuals can lead independent lives with minimal support. However, currently, no communication therapy is available to people with PPA due to the progressive nature of the disorder and lack of awareness of available options for professionals willing to treat it. Naming impairments are omnipresent in PPA. For this reason, anomia will be the focus of our intervention. Participants with PPA in our study will receive two kinds of therapy for the words they cannot recall spontaneously, and will be trained to maintain them through social interaction. The type of training will be based on the most successful interventions the investigators provided to people with PPA in our previous work (active encoding and errorless lerning). The investigators expect that successful re-learning of forgotten words and practicing them in a group setting will facilitate retention of communication skills leading to greater personal independence and increased/maintained quality of life for people with PPA. half of the cohort (randomly determined) will then participate in a communication group where conversations are encouraged and half will attend "non-verbal" group meetings when they will paint, watch movies and engage in other activities not requiring talking. To evaluate the benefits of practicing the re-learned words in a social setting naming skills will be tested for each participant before and after individual and group interventions.