Publications by authors named "A Volkmer"

Previous research suggests that emotional prosody perception is impaired in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease (AD) and primary progressive aphasia (PPA). However, no previous research has investigated emotional prosody perception in these diseases under non-ideal listening conditions. We recruited 18 patients with AD, and 31 with PPA (nine logopenic (lvPPA); 11 nonfluent/agrammatic (nfvPPA) and 11 semantic (svPPA)), together with 24 healthy age-matched individuals.

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Article Synopsis
  • This study investigates how language-specific features affect primary progressive aphasia (PPA) symptoms in Italian and English speakers, diverging from the traditionally English-focused research.
  • A comparison was made between 106 Italian speakers and 166 English speakers with various PPA syndromes, highlighting differences in demographic factors and symptom profiles.
  • Results showed significant variations between the cohorts, with English speakers having a higher proportion of nonfluent/agrammatic PPA cases and different patterns of language comprehension and production issues compared to Italian speakers.
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Introduction: Interventions to treat speech-language difficulties in primary progressive aphasia (PPA) often use word accuracy as a highly comparable outcome. However, there are more constructs of importance to people with PPA that have received less attention.

Methods: Following Core Outcome Set Standards for Development Recommendations (COSSTAD), this study comprised: Stage 1 - systematic review to identify measures; Stage 2 - consensus groups to identify important outcome constructs for people with PPA (n = 82) and care partners (n = 91); Stage 3 - e-Delphi consensus with 57 researchers.

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Article Synopsis
  • A systematic review was conducted to explore the issue of misdiagnosis in dementia, particularly focusing on rarer subtypes that may struggle more with accurate diagnosis compared to common types like Alzheimer's.
  • The review included 20 studies and identified four main themes: factors contributing to misdiagnosis, challenges in the diagnostic process, economic implications, and personal experiences of individuals facing delayed diagnoses.
  • There is a critical need for further research on the emotional and monetary effects of dementia misdiagnosis on patients, caregivers, and the healthcare system to improve clinical practices.
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