How Do Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease Describe Persons, Places and Situations? Description of Difficulties in Linguistic Communication in the Moderate Stage of Dementia

The paper presents difficulties in linguistic communication in Alzheimer’s patients (in the moderate stage dementia) on the basis of empirical studies concerning description as a form of spoken utterance, conducted in a 60-person group as part of the research project ‘Narrative and Its Disorders in the Course of Alzheimer’s Disease. The Scale of Narrative Skills as a Diagnostic Technique in Alzheimer’s Dementia’ (project manager: Dr Aneta Domagała; the 39th Competition of Ministry of Science and Higher Education for research projects NN104 155339). In relation to the findings presented in the comprehensive monograph on the problems of narrative (Domagała, 2015), the present paper compares the abilities of patients with regard to different kinds of description (of persons, interiors, situations) from the angle of the macro- and superstructure of text. From the superstructural perspective the greatest difficulties were shown in the case of describing a place. At the same time, when describing a place, the subjects had lesser difficulties with indicating the theme of an utterance and making generalizations than in the case of descriptions of persons and descriptions of situations.