Preserving lexical retrieval skills across languages in a bilingual person with logopenic primary progressive aphasia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background The treatment of lexical retrieval in monolingual people with the logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (lvPPA) has been observed to preserve or improve skills to varying degrees. There is a paucity of treatment literature for multilingual people with PPA (across all types), although based on the stroke-induced aphasia literature we would expect treatment to be effective in the treated language and potentially the untreated language too. Aims We investigated the effects of a verb-based semantic treatment administered in a later-acquired language to an English-Hebrew speaker with lvPPA on her lexical retrieval skills in different language tasks in both the treated and untreated languages. Methods & Procedures Language skills across different tasks were assessed pre- and post-treatment, with Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) provided in Hebrew. We evaluated whether decline continued for lexical retrieval (as observed in the years leading up to the study), and in which language(s). Outcomes & Results We observed that lexical retrieval skills in both languages did not decline for word production, sentence production, and written narratives, but did continue to decline during oral narrative production. Conclusions Our results indicate that VNeST may be an effective prophylactic treatment for the preservation of lexical retrieval skills in both a treated and untreated language of multilingual people with the logopenic variant of PPA.