JOURNAL ARTICLE
META-ANALYSIS
Add like
Add dislike
Add to saved papers

'Normal' semantic-phonemic fluency discrepancy in Alzheimer's disease? A meta-analytic study.

In a meta-analysis of 135 studies involving 6000 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 6057 healthy controls, we examined the relative degree of semantic and phonemic fluency impairment in AD patients. The effect size for semantic fluency (d=2.10: 95%CI 2.22-1.97) was significantly larger than for both phonemic fluency (d=1.46: 95%CI 1.56-1.36) and picture naming (d=1.54: 95%CI 1.66-1.40). In meta-regression analyses we found that studies with greater proportions of female patients and less severe dementia both led to better phonemic fluency; while perhaps surprisingly, increased patient education led to worse semantic fluency. Critically, in 50 studies measuring both semantic and phonemic fluency, the effect size for the semantic-phonemic discrepancy scores did not differ between AD patients and controls; and was unrelated to any of the moderator variables. The latter findings indicate that the semantic-phonemic fluency discrepancy measure often reported as an important distinguishing characteristic of AD patients may be an exaggerated normal tendency.

Full text links

We have located links that may give you full text access.
Can't access the paper?
Try logging in through your university/institutional subscription. For a smoother one-click institutional access experience, please use our mobile app.

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

Mobile app image

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

All material on this website is protected by copyright, Copyright © 1994-2024 by WebMD LLC.
This website also contains material copyrighted by 3rd parties.

By using this service, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Your Privacy Choices Toggle icon

You can now claim free CME credits for this literature searchClaim now

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app