Processamento semântico, mnemônico e executivo no contínuo demencial associado ao baixo nível sociocultural

• Autor(a) principal: Tessaro, Bruna
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da PUC_RS
• Texto Completo: http://tede2.pucrs.br/tede2/handle/tede/7293
• topic: Envelhecimento Saudável; Doença de Alzheimer; Comprometimento Cognitivo Leve; Memória Semântica; Fluência Verbal; Animacidade; Frequência de Hábitos de Leitura e Escrita; LINGUISTICA, LETRAS E ARTES::LETRAS

Communicating is one of the first ability that suffer losses in neurodegenerative events associated to aging, such as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Since the number of elderly people has grown significantly, given the increase of life expectancy in the last decades, the study of aging, and the cognitive states that follow it, is extremely urgent and relevant. The concern with an accurate and early diagnosis is mounting, in order to differentiate an expected age-associated decline from deficits that point to Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), a clinical condition bewtween normal aging and dementia. Semantic memory deficits have increasingly been associated to AD, and, in some cases, to MCI. The discussion on which types of semantic categories are the most affected is quite productive in the literature, however, it is still inconclusive. Even more, low schooling appears to be related to cognitive aspects, including semantic deterioration. Thus, this work investigated semantic processing in MCI and AD as compared to age and socioeconomic paired controls, in a low schooling population. The thesis is organized in two studies, both include individuals aged between 60 and 80 years old, monolinguals and with 2 to 8 years of schooling. The first study included 36 individuals divided in an aging control group (ACG), a AD group (ADG), and a MCI group (MCIG), in which they were administered naming and semantic association assessments. Analyses considered total score, naming error types, and stimuli animacy in both tasks. Study two included a verbal fluency task (VFT) with semantic (animals and clothing), and phonologic (/p/) criteria, administered in 25 controls, 24 MCI and 18 AD participants. Analyses were conducted considering the formation of clusters, intersections and returns in verbal fluency productions. Findings of the first study confirm semantic memory deterioration in ADG, while MCIG did not show any differences from ACG and ADG, revealing inconclusive data. Living items seem to be the most deteriorated due to degeneration caused by AD and MCI. Most frequent error types in the naming task were coordinated, omission, and superordinated, and the ADG presented significantly more errors of these types as compared to ACG. Results from the second study show that the VFT was sensitive in differentiating the ACG from the clinical groups, and the semantic criteria differentiated MCIG from ADG, while the phonologic criteria differentiated ACG from ADG. Whilst the combination of cluster analysis and total score of both VFT showed efficacy in differentiating groups, the semantic category alone was very effective in differentiating the three groups. Reading habits have positively influenced the performance of participants in both studies, they were even more predictive of the performance of participants than scholling was. This study intends to broaden the understanding of the relationship between low schooling, cognitive decline, semantic memory, and animacy, as well as discuss models and theories based on our findings.