Effects of computerized language intervention on abilities of time-person-place orientation and naming for individuals with dementia of the Alzheimer's type

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of computerized language intervention on the abilities of time-person-place (TPP) orientation and noun naming for Korean-speaking individuals with moderate to severe dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT). Methods: A total of seven individuals with moderate to severe DAT participated in the study, and six participants were entered into the data analysis. The treatment consisted of two parts: TPP orientation and naming treatment based on Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA)-plus. Dependent measures were accuracy on the TPP, noun naming, and noun comprehension tasks with treated and untreated items. Performance on the tasks was measured pre- and post-treatment, with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test used to examine significant differences. Results: Results revealed that there was a significant increase in person and place tasks after treatment, whereas there were no significant differences in time-domain. Significant increases in the trained nouns for naming were found whereas treatment effects were not generalized to untrained naming items and noun comprehension domains. Conclusion: The current study suggests that moderate to severe DAT participants benefited from language intervention especially in the domains of place-person orientation and noun naming. However, there were some limited generalization effects on untrained items after treatment. © 2015 Korean Academy of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology.