PROFILE OF THE APHASIC POPULATION IN A MONTREAL GERIATRIC HOSPITAL - A 6-YEAR STUDY

A retrospective analysis is presented for 117 aphasic patients in a geriatric hospital, aged between 50 and 91 years, who were previously examined with the MT86 battery (Nespoulous et al. 1986). Patients were divided into two groups according to age (upper limit: 70 years). Neurological signs, types of aphasia and individual symptoms (comprehension, fluency, paraphasias) were recorded for each group. The elderly group had more Wernicke's aphasics, fewer Broca's aphasics and fewer written language deficits. While comprehension, semantic and phonemic transformations remained in constant proportion in both groups, fluency increased in the elderly group. The neurological and neuroradiological pictures remained constant. In a selected sub-population of right-handed patients with single left lesions, a naming task failed to demonstrate a modification in the frequency of semantic and phonemic paraphasias as ageing increased. The results are discussed in the light of different theories on the change in aphasic symptomatology as a function of age.