Abstract
Auditory dysfunction under complex, dynamic listening conditions is a clinical hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD) but challenging to measure and manage. Here, we assessed understanding of sinewave speech (a paradigm of degraded speech perception) and general cognitive abilities in 17 AD patients, before and following a 10 mg dose of donepezil. Relative to healthy older individuals, patients had impaired sinewave speech comprehension that was selectively ameliorated by donepezil. Our findings demonstrate impaired perception of degraded speech in AD but retained perceptual learning capacity that can be harnessed by acetylcholinesterase inhibition, with implications for designing communication interventions and acoustic environments in dementia.
Highlights
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is associated with impaired higher cortical auditory function and communication, in complex, dynamic acoustic environments, and the role of hearing impairment in cognitive decline is currently the focus of intense interest.[1]
We have shown that patients with AD have impaired perception of degraded speech and that this deficit is ameliorated by acetylcholinesterase inhibition, under clinically relevant dosing conditions
This procholinergic benefit in the AD group did not extend to other cognitive measures over a similar time-frame and did not correlate with general indices of overall disease severity, arguing for a relatively specific effect on degraded speech perception rather than a generic enhancement of cognitive function or practice effect
Summary
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is associated with impaired higher cortical auditory function and communication, in complex, dynamic acoustic environments, and the role of hearing impairment in cognitive decline is currently the focus of intense interest.[1] Patients with AD frequently struggle to understand spoken information in the presence of background noise or when delivered in unfamiliar accents or voices,[2,3,4] restricting communication and quality of life. Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc on behalf of American Neurological Association.
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