Investigating the effect of Semantic Feature Analysis on anomia in early Alzheimer's disease: Study cases

Abstract

This work investigated the effectiveness of a method for managing anomia, Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA), through two case studies of people with early-stage Alzheimer's disease (AD). Initially designed for aphasic patients, SFA aims to reorganize the lexico-semantic network by activating semantic features of concepts in order to improve naming of objects. In AD, semantic deterioration is early observed leading, among other troubles, in anomia. We postulate that SFA can allow an improvement of the oral naming abilities of images by reinforcing the structure of the lexical-semantic network. Two participants, MS (87 years old, female, MMSE: 24/30) and MV (87 years old, female, MMSE: 20/30), were recruited for the study. Naming performance was assessed in the pre-intervention, post-intervention and maintenance phases using a naming task designed specially for this study. A 16-session individualized treatment program was implemented with two 60-minute sessions per week for 8 weeks. During the sessions, the participants were asked to complete a semantic feature analysis chart for fifteen different items. The results show an improvement in naming performance only for MS participant. A generalization of this improvement to the untrained items but semantically related to the trained items and a maintenance of the benefits related to the treatment were observed. In contrast, for the MV participant, performance did not change significantly. This absence of response to treatment could be explained in part by greater general cognitive decline. In conclusion, the treatment of anomia by the SFA resulted in significant improvements in one of our participants with AD. However, further research investigating SFA in AD patients is still needed to better understand the factors that support a positive effect of the treatment.