Primary Progressive Aphasia: What We Know So Far about the Literature on Speech and Language Interventions
Annachiara Messina, Antonio Miozzo, Giancarlo Logroscino, Petronilla Battista
Progressive Primary Aphasia (PPA) is a neurological syndrome that refers to anatomically and pathologically heterogeneous neurodegenerative disorders usually associated with the spectrum of frontotemporal dementia or atypical variants of Alzheimer’s disease. PPA is characterized by the selective and progressive loss of linguistic and cognitive functions. To date, three clinical variants have been described: non-fluent/agrammatic, semantic, and logopenic; each presents a different pattern of cortical atrophy. The classification of the three variants requires the identification of linguistic/cognitive deficits, as well as of the cognitive and behavioral functions that are still preserved. There is currently a lack of effective pharmacological options to counteract the course of symptoms and disease. Research in speech and language therapy allowed the development of several interventions useful in the clinical practice. However, multiple limits still need to be overcome to improve access to care for people with PPA, including to increase the awareness among the clinicians themselves and to provide specific training, together with the development of evidence-based scientific papers. The goal of this work is to provide an overview of the language treatments, to confirm the usefulness of early speech therapy treatment and management of people living with PPA. To this aim, 35 papers were included and discussed in this review, highlighting their advantages and limitations.
Keywords
Neurodegenerative diseases, Dementia, Language disorders, Speech-language treatment, Review.