Performances in a Picture Description Task in Japanese Patients with Alzheimer's Disease and with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Background & Objectives: To determine the earliest changes in language function in participants with Alzheimer's disease, performances in various language tests were compared between patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) and healthy elderly individuals. Methods: Language function was studied in patients with amnestic MCI (n = 20) and with mild AD (n = 27) and was compared with normal cognition in elderly individuals (NC, n = 20) using the Communicative Abilities in Daily Living (CADL), a confrontation naming test, and the Boston Cookie-Theft picture description task. The analysis for the picture description task was divided into two aspects: syntactic and semantic. Results: 1) In the CADL and confrontation naming tests, the mild AD group performed worse than did the NC and MCI groups. However, there was no significant difference between the NC and MCI groups. 2) In the Cookie-Theft picture description task, performances of the MCI and AD groups were non-informative, inefficient and empty in semantic aspect compared to the NC group. However, no differences were observed between the three groups on syntactic aspect. Discussion & Conclusion: The picture description task is useful for detecting subtle language deficits in patients with amnestic MCI. This study demonstrated that the picture description task can sensitively detect complex integrated communication abilities, although it is very quick and simple to administer.