Healthy aging, Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's disease: a study of the communicative strategies in oral narratives

The increase in cases of the Mild Cognitive Impairment (CCL) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) requires more studies on impaired cognitive and linguistic abilities. Literature, in general, addresses the communication losses of these populations, but with little attention to the investigation of preserved skills. Thus, this study aims at analyzing the communicative strategies (CSs) present in the oral narrative production of these individuals, as well as to verify the impact of the educational variable on the performance of the same activity in healthy elderly people. The study involved 95 elderly people, who produced an oral narrative based on a sequence of figures, The Dog Story (LE BOUEF, 1976). The results showed that the elderly with CCL and AD had higher use of CSs than the control group, while healthy elderly with high schooling used fewer CSs. Therefore, the analyses of CSs showed to be an supporting aid for the communication in COL and AD, as well as schooling was evidenced as an important marker of cognitive reserve in healthy aging.