Semantic dementia: Brazilian study of nineteen cases
Abstract The term semantic dementia was devised by Snowden et al. in 1989 and nowadays, the semantic dementia syndrome is recognized as one of the clinical forms of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and is characterized by a language semantic disturbance associated to non-verbal semantic memo...
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Associação Neurologia Cognitiva e do Comportamento
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doaj-719e1505a81b49549e42861f5a1ff12a2020-11-24T22:30:20ZengAssociação Neurologia Cognitiva e do ComportamentoDementia & Neuropsychologia1980-57641436637310.1590/S1980-57642008DN10400007S1980-57642007000400366Semantic dementia: Brazilian study of nineteen casesMirna Lie Hosogi SenahaPaulo CaramelliClaudia Sellitto PortoRicardo NitriniAbstract The term semantic dementia was devised by Snowden et al. in 1989 and nowadays, the semantic dementia syndrome is recognized as one of the clinical forms of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and is characterized by a language semantic disturbance associated to non-verbal semantic memory impairment. Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe a Brazilian sample of 19 semantic dementia cases, emphasizing the clinical characteristics important for differential diagnosis of this syndrome. Methods: Nineteen cases with semantic dementia were evaluated between 1999 and 2007. All patients were submitted to neurological evaluation, neuroimaging exams and cognitive, language and semantic memory evaluation. Results: All patients presented fluent spontaneous speech, preservation of syntactic and phonological aspects of the language, word-finding difficulty, semantic paraphasias, word comprehension impairment, low performance in visual confrontation naming tasks, impairment on tests of non-verbal semantic memory and preservation of autobiographical memory and visuospatial skills. Regarding radiological investigations, temporal lobe atrophy and/or hypoperfusion were found in all patients. Conclusions: The cognitive, linguistic and of neuroimaging data in our case series corroborate other studies showing that semantic dementia constitutes a syndrome with well defined clinical characteristics associated to temporal lobe atrophy.http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1980-57642007000400366&lng=en&tlng=ensemantic dementiasemantic memoryfluent progressive aphasiaprimary progressive aphasiaword comprehensiontemporal lobe |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Mirna Lie Hosogi Senaha Paulo Caramelli Claudia Sellitto Porto Ricardo Nitrini |
spellingShingle |
Mirna Lie Hosogi Senaha Paulo Caramelli Claudia Sellitto Porto Ricardo Nitrini Semantic dementia: Brazilian study of nineteen cases Dementia & Neuropsychologia semantic dementia semantic memory fluent progressive aphasia primary progressive aphasia word comprehension temporal lobe |
author_facet |
Mirna Lie Hosogi Senaha Paulo Caramelli Claudia Sellitto Porto Ricardo Nitrini |
author_sort |
Mirna Lie Hosogi Senaha |
title |
Semantic dementia: Brazilian study of nineteen cases |
title_short |
Semantic dementia: Brazilian study of nineteen cases |
title_full |
Semantic dementia: Brazilian study of nineteen cases |
title_fullStr |
Semantic dementia: Brazilian study of nineteen cases |
title_full_unstemmed |
Semantic dementia: Brazilian study of nineteen cases |
title_sort |
semantic dementia: brazilian study of nineteen cases |
publisher |
Associação Neurologia Cognitiva e do Comportamento |
series |
Dementia & Neuropsychologia |
issn |
1980-5764 |
description |
Abstract The term semantic dementia was devised by Snowden et al. in 1989 and nowadays, the semantic dementia syndrome is recognized as one of the clinical forms of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and is characterized by a language semantic disturbance associated to non-verbal semantic memory impairment. Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe a Brazilian sample of 19 semantic dementia cases, emphasizing the clinical characteristics important for differential diagnosis of this syndrome. Methods: Nineteen cases with semantic dementia were evaluated between 1999 and 2007. All patients were submitted to neurological evaluation, neuroimaging exams and cognitive, language and semantic memory evaluation. Results: All patients presented fluent spontaneous speech, preservation of syntactic and phonological aspects of the language, word-finding difficulty, semantic paraphasias, word comprehension impairment, low performance in visual confrontation naming tasks, impairment on tests of non-verbal semantic memory and preservation of autobiographical memory and visuospatial skills. Regarding radiological investigations, temporal lobe atrophy and/or hypoperfusion were found in all patients. Conclusions: The cognitive, linguistic and of neuroimaging data in our case series corroborate other studies showing that semantic dementia constitutes a syndrome with well defined clinical characteristics associated to temporal lobe atrophy. |
topic |
semantic dementia semantic memory fluent progressive aphasia primary progressive aphasia word comprehension temporal lobe |
url |
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1980-57642007000400366&lng=en&tlng=en |
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