Comparing Lexical Retrieval Processing in People with Alzheimer’s Disease, Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, and Parkinson’s Disease to Healthy Older Adults

Bae, Na-Hyeon; Jang, Ye-Jin; Kim, Nayeon; Park, Ki-Su; Kang, Kyunghun; Yoon, Janghyeok; Ha, Ji-Wan

doi:2025.30.1.178

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2025;30(1): 178-191.
Published online March 31, 2025.
doi: https://doi.org/10.12963/csd.250102

Comparing Lexical Retrieval Processing in People with Alzheimer’s Disease, Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, and Parkinson’s Disease to Healthy Older Adults

, Ki-Su Park^c ^,d

^aDepartment of Speech and Language Pathology, Graduate School of Rehabilitation, Daegu University, Gyeongsan, Korea
^bAI Lab, Neopons Inc., Daegu, Korea
^cDepartment of Neurosurgery, School of Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea
^dNeopons Inc., Daegu, Korea
^eDepartment of Neurology, School of Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea
^fDepartment of Industrial Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea
^gDepartment of Speech and Language Pathology, Daegu University, Gyeongsan, Korea

Corresponding Author: Ji-Wan Ha ,Tel: +82-53-850-4327, Fax: +82-53-850-4329, Email: jw-ha@daegu.ac.kr

Received January 20, 2025 Revised: March 16, 2025 Accepted March 27, 2025

ABSTRACT

Objectives
The aim of this study was to determine whether multifaceted analyses of a lexical retrieval task can provide meaningful information for the differential diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), and Parkinson’s disease (PD).
Methods
A total of 41 patients diagnosed with AD, NPH, or PD and 16 healthy elderly adults (HE) were tested on a lexical retrieval task. Response scores, response times, error types, and the percentage of errors resolved were compared across groups, and a correlation analysis with the Korean Mini-Mental State Examination (K-MMSE) was performed.
Results
First, the AD, NPH, and PD groups had significantly fewer correct responses and significantly more incorrect responses than the HE group. The PD group made significantly more incorrect responses than the AD group. Second, the AD, NPH, PD group had significantly slower reaction times for correct responses than the HE group. Third, all four groups showed significantly more semantic errors than other error types, and the least were mixed errors. Fourth, the three patient groups were significantly less able to monitor and correct errors than the HE group. Fifth, the K-MMSE score was significantly positively correlated with the number of correct responses and negatively correlated with the number of incorrect responses, semantic errors, and unrelated errors.
Conclusion
We suggest that the lexical retrieval task can be effectively used to screen patients with AD, NPH, and PD from HE, and explore its potential for differential diagnosis.