Longitudinal verbal fluency in normal aging, preclinical, and prevalent Alzheimer's disease.

摘要

BACKGROUND: Few longitudinal studies evaluate differences in patterns of change of category compared to letter fluency across the spectrum of cognitive impairment. METHODS: We compared change in category (animal and supermarket) and letter (F, A, S) fluency among 239 participants in 3 groups: remained cognitively normal throughout follow-up (n = 96), developed Alzheimer's Disease (AD; preclinical AD, n = 21), and with AD at initial testing (prevalent AD, n = 122). RESULTS: At baseline, prevalent and preclinical AD groups scored lower on animal than letter fluency. On all fluency measures, the prevalent AD declined faster than other groups (all P < .0001), and preclinical AD declined faster than unimpaired (all P