| Popis: |
This chapter discusses the current state of treatment and intervention approaches to language impairments resulting from neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and primary progressive aphasia (PPA). Traditionally, language therapy has focused on improving performance after stroke, while linguistic difficulties resulting from various neurodegenerative conditions have largely been left untreated. Despite the progressive nature of these conditions, current research has shown that language impairments associated with them are responsive to therapy, indicating the potential for neuroplasticity even in neurodegeneration. In this chapter, we present and discuss behavioral intervention methods targeting the word as well as the sentence level of impairment in the aforementioned conditions, as well as neuromodulatory techniques (repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation) and their application in the domain of language impairments. Efficacy of treatment varies depending on the condition but also on the technique: therapy gains seem to be higher when it comes to AD as compared to MCI and when it comes to agrammatic (PPA-G) or logopenic PPA (PPA-L) as compared to semantic PPA (PPA-S). Moreover, neuromodulatory techniques may have longer-lasting effects relative to behavioral treatment, while combined interventions (behavioral and neuromodulatory) have produced more promising results, maximizing the efficacy of the intervention. |
