Common and proper nouns in mild Alzheimer’s disease

Disturbance in naming accuracy and reaction time (RT) is one of the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Naming performance can be considered a diagnostic key in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which has remained diagnostically challenging. Although most of the studies in this field have been conducted on the naming accuracy of common nouns, others have shown that proper nouns are more sensitive for detecting the onset of AD. This study aims to compare the naming of common and proper nouns. Eighty pictures of common and proper nouns (40 items each) were presented to 18 healthy older adults and 18 people with mild Alzheimer’s disease using DMDX software on a laptop computer. The patients’ responses were transcribed into a pre-designed form, and their reaction times were captured by DMDX. Study results indicated a significant difference in the number of errors and RTs between proper and common nouns in patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease (<i>p</i>-value=), implying that proper nouns may be more sensitive to mild AD. Moreover, patients with mild Alzheimer’s had more problems in common and proper nouns than healthy older adults. This study demonstrated that individuals with mild AD experienced greater difficulty recalling proper nouns, which were found to be more susceptible to the effects of AD.

命名准确性与反应时（reaction time, RT）受损是阿尔茨海默病（Alzheimer’s disease, AD）的早期症状之一。命名表现在阿尔茨海默病早期可作为关键诊断指标，但该阶段的临床诊断始终颇具挑战性。尽管该领域多数研究聚焦于普通名词的命名准确性，已有研究证实专有名词对AD发病的检测更为敏感。本研究旨在对比普通名词与专有名词的命名表现。研究通过笔记本电脑上的DMDX软件，向18名健康老年人及18名轻度阿尔茨海默病患者呈现80张图片（普通名词与专有名词各40项）。将被试的反应转录至预设记录表中，其反应时由DMDX软件记录。研究结果显示，轻度阿尔茨海默病患者在专有名词与普通名词任务中的错误数与反应时均存在显著差异（p值=），提示专有名词或许对轻度AD更为敏感。此外，轻度阿尔茨海默病患者在普通名词与专有名词命名任务中的表现均劣于健康老年人。本研究证实，轻度AD患者对专有名词的回忆难度更高，而专有名词确实更易受AD病理的影响。