Discourse Impairing in Elderly with Alzheimer's : Neurolinguistics Approach

The process of revision in speech is one of the most common symptoms of discourse impairing in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type. The purpose of this study is to investigate Revision in the discourse of senile dementia of the Alzheimer’s type based on Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks.

This study was a quantitative and ex post facto type that has been done in one of nursing homes in Kermanshah in 2019. The statistic population of this study included 20 subjects (10 senile dementia of the Alzheimer’s’ type and 10 normal elderly subjects) who were matched based on age (63-75), gender (male and female), illiteracy, and Kurdish speaker (Kalhori dialect) after studying their medical documents. To determine the severity of dementia, the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale was administered and subjects with a score (0.5 ≤ score< 2) were selected. The subjects answered the questions about their families, daily activities, lives, and celebrating Eid Nowruz. Their interviews were recorded and transcribed and then they were coded based on Dijkstra model. Independent t-test was used to show the statistic results. Results Independent t-test showed a significant difference between two groups of patients and healthy elderly. In doing so, trouble source (P=0.003), repair initiator (p<0.05) (all cases except possible repair understanding by listener) and repairs (p<0.05) (all cases except substitution) were reported.

The results showed that the discourse aspect of trouble source has remarkable frequency, and the most frequency about two categories including repair initiator and repairs were respectively