Abstract
Language and communication difficulties may occur in the elderly population. This is the case of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon and receptive and auditory comprehension difficulties. Few studies have focused on examining the effects of social exposure on maintaining communication in the aging process.OBJECTIVES[1] To describe the communication map of healthy elderly subjects; [2] To search for associations between frequency and time dedicated to communication and cognitive and sociodemographic factors.METHODSHealthy elderly subjects were submitted to cognitive screening, the Token Test – Revised, and the Verbal Fluency test, and answered the ASHA-FACS and the Circles of Communication Partners questionnaires.RESULTS55 subjects, 67% female, with ages over 60 years and varied schooling were included in the sample. Interlocutors in the circle of close friends and acquaintances predominated in the communication map, although the time devoted to communication with these partners was lower than in other circles. Overall, the elderly reported no deficits in language comprehension, with some reports of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Poor performances on the Token Test – Revised and in phonemic verbal fluency along with reports of communication functionality indicated that these subjects compensate for their problems.CONCLUSIONOlder subjects with lower schooling tended to predominantly communicate within the family circle. Within other circles, the number of hours devoted to communication and dialogue partners was not associated with age or schooling. The time devoted to the circle of communication with friends may indicate cognitive difficulties.
Highlights
Data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) show that, in 2020, the elderly population in Brazil will number 28 million individuals, a figure set to nearly double by 2040.1 This signals the need to reflect on how to evaluate and propose measures to guarantee the health and functionality of these subjects.Aging is a heterogeneous process
Certain difficulties may frequently occur in the elderly population, such as failing to retrieve words during conversation,[2,3,4] and receptive and auditory comprehension difficulties.[5,6]
We considered independence in Social Communication, scored on a scale from 1 to 7, in which 7 represents maximum independence and 1, extreme dependence.[2]
Summary
Certain difficulties may frequently occur in the elderly population, such as failing to retrieve words during conversation (tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon),[2,3,4] and receptive and auditory comprehension difficulties.[5,6]. The tip-of-the-tong phenomenon may occur in young and elderly subjects, but is more frequent in the latter group. This phenomenon refers to the failure to retrieve words, especially names and places.[3] Affected individuals are able to retrieve the meaning, formal characteristics, such as number of graphemes, initial phoneme, syllabic length of the words, or even to recall words with similar phonological structures, but fail to access the phonological representation of certain words. The lexical item can be retrieved spontaneously after some time.[5]
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