Dement Neurocogn Disord.  2016 Mar;15(1):7-14. 10.12779/dnd.2016.15.1.7.

Cued and Un-Cued Semantic Category Fluency in Older Adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment

• Kwon SY
• Ha JW

• KMID: 2442865
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.12779/dnd.2016.15.1.7

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Patients with switching deficits reportedly benefit more from categorical cueing for semantic category fluency than do patients with clustering deficits. We explored the contribution of language ability and executive control on the performance of semantic category fluency in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) by examining the effects of categorical cueing on the task.
METHODS
Order adults with MCI (n=10) and normal controls (n=25) were compared on two versions of a semantic fluency task: a standard, un-cued version (SF) and a version in which subjects were cued (C-SF) with 4 subordinated categories. The scores and error types of SF and C-SF tasks were analyzed between two groups. Also, the correlation among the SF task, the C-SF task, and the confrontation naming task were examined.
RESULTS
The performance of the sematic fluency task improved when categorical cues were included in both groups. However, the normal group showed significantly more improvement than the MCI group. Self-repetition errors in the SF task and categorical errors in the C-SF task occurred most frequently. The normal group showed significantly more errors than the MCI group in the C-SF task. There was a positive correlation among the SF task, the C-SF task, and the confrontation naming task.
CONCLUSIONS
The results of the present study suggested that the MCI group has more difficulty in the semantic memory store rather than in the use of retrieval strategies. A combination of standard and cued semantic fluency tasks may help to confirm the underlying deficit of semantic fluency impairment.

Keyword

semantic category fluency; cued semantic category fluency; mild cognitive impairment

MeSH Terms

Adult*
Cues
Executive Function
Humans
Language
Memory
Mild Cognitive Impairment*
Semantics*

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