Table 1.
Demographic, clinical and neuropsychological characteristics of participant groups.
| Characteristic | Controls | nfvPPA | svPPA | lvPPA | tAD | bvFTD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DEMOGRAPHIC AND CLINICAL | ||||||
| No. (male:female) | 6:7 | 2:3 | 5:3 | 5:1 | 4:7 | 7:1 |
| Age (years) | 68.4 (5.4) | 73.5 (11.4) | 68.1 (7.0) | 69.5 (8.5) | 70.0 (8.0) | 65.6 (8.7) |
| Handedness (R:L) | 13:0 | 4:1 | 8:0 | 5:1 | 10:1 | 8:0 |
| Education (years) | 17.2 (1.7) | 14.2 (2.8) | 15.1 (2.9) | 15.2 (2.6) | 14.6 (1.7) | 16.0 (3.1) |
| MMSE (/30) | 29.8 (0.4) | 25.6 (4.5) | 24.4 (5.5) | 19.0 (8.3) | 17.1 (4.8) | 17.1 (4.8) |
| Symptom duration (years) | NA | 3.6 (1.1) | 5.6 (2.2) | 3.8 (2.4) | 5.5 (3.0) | 6.5 (3.3) |
| PTA (Normal:Mild:Moderate) | 3:8:0 | 1:2:1a | 2:4:0b | 2:1:2a | 2:7:0b | 1:5:2 |
| GENERAL INTELLECT | ||||||
| VIQ | 127.1 (6.0) | 81.2 (18.6) | 78.3 (14.1) | 70.7 (16.7) | 87.1 (14.9)a | 96.8 (24.2) |
| PIQ | 127.0 (13.8) | 97.0 (22.3) | 121.5 (15.0) | 82.0 (12.6) | 81.9 (18.4)a | 106.3 (18.5) |
| EPISODIC MEMORY | ||||||
| RMT words (/50) | 45.1 (11.0) | 39.0 (6.0)a | 32.3 (7.4)a | 40.5 (7.8)b | 15.3 (2.8)a,* | 38.4 (10.5)a |
| RMT faces ( /50) | 43.7 (4.6) | 37.0 (4.1)a | 35.6 (5.4)a | 36.4 (8.8)a | 17.7 (2.7)a,* | 33.1 (10.1)a |
| WORKING MEMORY | ||||||
| Digit span forward (max) | 7.1 (1.0) | 5.4 (1.3) | 6.6 (1.4) | 4.6 (1.1)a | 5.6 (1.4) | 6.7 (1.5) |
| Spatial span forward (max) | 5.6 (0.9)a | 5.2 (1.1) | 4.9 (0.9)a | 3.2 (0.8) | NA | NA |
| EXECUTIVE SKILLS | ||||||
| Digit span reverse (max) | 4.8 (1.3) | 2.8 (1.0)a | 5.0 (1.9) | 2.8 (0.8)a | 3.6 (0.7)a | 4.4 (1.2) |
| Spatial span reverse (max) | 5.6 (0.9)a | 4.2 (1.1) | 5.0 (1.0)a | 3.0 (1.0)a | NA | NA |
| Letter fluency (total) | 20.5 (5.5) | 6.8 (5.7)a | 10.3 (4.3) | 5.3 (5.9)b | 8.4 (4.2) | 10.5 (4.8) |
| Category fluency (total) | 24.8 (5.6) | 8.6 (5.9) | 21.1 (41.3) | 6.0 (9.0)a | 5.3 (3.0) | 13.3 (8.5) |
| Trails A (s) | 30.7 (8.2) | 82.8 (45.7) | 41.0 (21.9) | 106.5 (36.5) | 95.8 (37.0)b | 38.3 (25.5) |
| POSTERIOR CORTICAL SKILLS | ||||||
| GDA (/24) | 15.8 (4.1) | 7.3 (6.6)b | 12.7 (7.4)a | 1.3 (2.3)c | 1.9 (1.0)c | 10.9 (7.4) |
| VOSP object decision (/20) | 19.2 (1.0) | 17.2 (2.2) | 17.5 (1.6) | 14.7 (3.1) | 15.5 (2.3) | 17.3 (3.6)a |
| NEUROLINGUISTIC SKILLS | ||||||
| Speech perception | ||||||
| PALPA-3 (/36) | 35.4 (0.3) | 34.4 (3.0) | 35.1 (0.3)a | 33.0 (2.2)a | NA | NA |
| Word retrieval | ||||||
| GNT (/30) | 26.9 (2.7) | 15.8 (4.5) | 1.0 (2.2) | 7.4 (8.2)b | 10.1 (8.4)a | 15.3 (11.9) |
| Comprehension | ||||||
| BPVS (/51) | 47.8 (6.3) | 35.8 (10.2) | 13.0 (15.6) | 26.6 (17.2)a | 38.3 (5.9)a | 40.6 (10.0) |
| Concrete synonyms (/25) | 24.7 (0.1) | 19.5 (4.8)a | 17.3 (1.5)b | 17.8 (2.4)a | NA | NA |
| Abstract synonyms (/25) | 24.6 (0.3) | 20.0 (6.0)a | 16.7 (1.5)b | 18.8 (1.6)b | NA | NA |
| PALPA-55 sentences (/24) | 23.9 (0.1) | 18.8 (4.9) | 22.3 (0.9)a | 16.4 (5.6)a | NA | NA |
| Speech repetition | ||||||
| Polysyllabic words (/45) | 44.8 (0.1) | 39.8 (8.0) | 44.0 (0.6)a | 32.3 (11.9) | NA | NA |
| Graded sentences | 9.6 (0.2) | 6.0 (3.2) | 8.3 (0.4)a | 5.0 (3.8) | NA | NA |
Mean (standard deviation) values are shown; values in bold are significantly different from the healthy control group. Reduced numbers of participants are indicated:
n-1;
n-2;
n-3;
Note that participants with tAD were given the short (25 item) RMT for both faces and words. BPVS, British Picture Vocabulary Scale; bvFTD, patient group with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia; Controls, healthy control group; GDA, Graded Difficulty Arithmetic test; GNT, Graded Naming Test; lvPPA, patient group with logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia; nfvPPA, patient group with nonfluent-agrammatic variant primary progressive aphasia; PALPA, Psycholinguistic Assessment of Language Processing in Aphasia; PIQ, Performance IQ; PTA, pure tone audiogram (degree of hearing loss); RMT, Recognition Memory Test; svPPA, patient group with semantic variant primary progressive aphasia; tAD, patient group with typical Alzheimer's disease; VIQ, verbal IQ; VOSP, Visual Object and Space Perception battery.