Procedural discourse of men and women with Alzheimer's disease: A longitudinal study with clinical implications

Measures of procedural discourse, verbal instructions that tell how a task is accomplished, in 60 persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) (29 men, 31 women) and 50 non demented elderly persons (21 men, 29 women) were compared at entry and 18 months later The measures included seven linguistic elements (statements, abandoned utterances, mazes, number of different words used in relation to total words, length of utterances, questions, and interrupted utterances) and four procedural elements (essential steps, optional steps, off topic utterances, and repetitions of steps). Gender patterns were examined in both groups over time. Results showed that AD subjects used fewer statements and produced longer utterances; AD subjects provided fewer essential and optional steps; AD subjects showed a sharp decline over time with fewer statements, more questions, and fewer essential steps. AD men and women performed similarly. Clinicians can gain significant information about language and cognitive function of persons with AD by including procedural discourse in the evaluation protocol.