DEMENTIA AS A FORM OF LANGUAGE DISORDERS: NOSOLOGICAL CLARIFICATION

• Authors: Peng C.C. Fred
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper aims to accomplish two objectives: first, dementia is not an aphasia as has been claimed by some neurologists and aphasiologists but, rather, it is a form of language disorders; second, to counter the claim that dementia is an aphasia, there is an urgent need to distinguish dementia from aphasia by stating the historical facts underlying these two conditions, on the one hand, and to ascertain whether or not there is a semantic confusion on the part of the claimers because of the common ground called language disorders between the two, on the other. The method employed is a standard literature review coupled with my clinical experiences as a behavioral neuroscientist dealing with patients of different kinds of brain diseases as well as stroke patients. During the process of review, I shall indicate with evidence that the claim of dementia being an aphasia is based on the erroneous deduction that since the prominent symptoms of dementia are language disorders and aphasia by definition shows through in language disorders, dementia must be an aphasia which is dubbed 'primary progressive aphasia'. My literature reviews and research show that language in the brain is behavior, which is memory-governed, meaning-centered, and multifaceted. Any damage to the brain will thus affect the brain functions of memory. Any form of the brain dysfunctions of memory results in language disorders of one kind or another. Thus, dementia is a term often used erroneously by neurologists and psychiatrists to designate the brain dysfunctions of memory as a disease, when such dysfunctions manifest in the patient's language disorders. The claimers simply take over the term and associate it with the similar though not identical symptoms in aphasia and call it 'primary progressive aphasia'. However, the distinction of dementia and aphasia lies precisely in the different nature of such language disorders in each condition. On the basis of the evidence observed, dementia cannot be an aphasia any more than it is a disease. The term 'primary progressive aphasia' is therefore a misnomer. Notwithstanding, as both dementia and aphasia display symptoms of language disorders, the distinction has to be made. That is, dementia is not a disease but a consequence of any one of a number of neurodegenerative diseases or their combination and the consequence deteriorates in accordance with the type of neurodegenerative disease that has caused it. In the case of aphasia, it is not a disease either but a permanent sequela of a brain damage, due to stroke or trauma; the important point is that it is not neurodegenerative, because it is acquired, unless it is accompanied by another neurological condition, e.g., epilepsy, and/or a brain disease.

Keywords

EN

DEMENTIA; LANGUAGE DISORDERS

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk
• Journal: Lingua Posnaniensis
• Year: 2005
• Volume: 47
• Pages: 133-141
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Peng C.C. Fred

• Fred C.C. Peng, Department of Neurosurgery and Neurological Institute, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, 201 Shih-Pai Road, Section 2, Taipei, 11217 Taiwan

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

06PLAAAA00671697