Objective: The objective of this study is to assess linguistic processing and production in patients with PD.

Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative condition primarily involving subcortical structure substantia nigra. Because of its connections with cortex the damage to substantia nigra(part of BG) can result in deficits in motor speech production as well as language processing¹.  Neuropsychological findings have shown deficits in naming, verbal fluency and memory in patients with PD². Cognition and language are interrelated as cognition facilitates processing and production of language. In the current study we aim at studying the cognitive linguistic aspects in patients with PD.

Method: This is a cross-sectional study consisting of two groups, 10 individuals with PD formed participants of groupI(GI) and 10 age, gender and education matched healthy individuals formed groupII(GII). Participants between age of 40 to 60, confirmed diagnosis of PD, ≤ 3 staging in modified Hoehn and Yahr staging, near normal hearing and corrected vision, normal rate of speech  and score of >25 in Hindi Mental State Examination were included in the study. Participants were evaluated using Cognitive Linguistic Assessment Protocol – Kannada (CLAP-K) for the following domains 1.Attention, perception and discrimination(visual and auditory), 2.Memory (episodic,working and semantic), 3.Problem solving(sentence disambiguation,sentence formulation,predicting outcome,compare and contrast,predicting cause,why questions and sequential analysis) and 4. Organization(categorization,analogies,sequencing events). Parameter total scores(TS), time taken to complete the tasks(T(sec)) and reaction time(RT(sec)) for each of the domains were considered for comparisons between the groups.

Results: Results showed significant difference between GI and GII for the following parameters of CLAP-K 1.RT(sec) in domains of problem solving and organization,2.T(sec) in semantic memory, problem solving and organization,3.TS of semantic memory,sentence disambiguation of domain problem solving and sequencing events of domain organization.

Conclusion: Results of this study indicate deficits in language processing i.e lexical access as well as semantics and syntactic aspects of language production indicating that the pathophysiology of PD affects language processing and production. This is possibly caused by the cortico-striato-pallido-thalamo-cortical-circuits affected in PD¹³.

References: 1. Altmann, L. J., & Troche, M. S. (2011). High-level language production in Parkinson’s disease: a review. Parkinson’s Disease, 2011. 2. Aarsland, D., Bronnick, K., & Fladby, T. (2011). Mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease. Current neurology and neuroscience reports, 11(4), 371-378. 3. Smith, K. M., & Caplan, D. N. (2018). Communication impairment in Parkinson’s disease: impact of motor and cognitive symptoms on speech and language. Brain and language, 185, 38-46.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/linguistic-deficits-in-patients-with-parkinsons-disease/