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Fluency in primary progressive aphasia - logopenic variant

This research is a case report which aims to perform a longitudinal analysis of fluency of a subject with Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), Logopenic variant. The method of analysis was based on seven speech therapy sessions of a 61-year-old patient diagnosed with PPA. The data was analyzed qualitatively in light of Enunciative-Discursive Neurolinguistics. The results showed that the patient has the logopenic variant of PPA, with the following characteristics: preservation of speech grammar structure, preserved comprehension of single words and phrases during conversation in dialogical interaction. Speech flow difficulties were marked by occurrences of repetitions of longer and more unusual words, phonological paraphasias, non-fluent pauses and anomies. The analysis also pointed to a progression of symptoms, with increasing number of repetitions of different forms of occurrence. These modifications suggest an inversely proportional relationship between oral fluency and disease progression in which speech flow tends to decay. This scenario is relevant for subjects' language because it influences their social interaction, i.e., the less fluent their speech, the more affected they are as speakers.

Aphasia; Primary progressive aphasia-logopenic; Language; Neurolinguistic; Neuropschology


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