Carthery-Goulart Maria Teresa, de Oliveira Rosimeire, de Almeida Isabel Junqueira, Campanha Aline, da Silva Souza Dayse, Zana Yossi, Caramelli Paulo, Machado Thais Helena
Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Mathematics, Computing and Cognition Center (CMCC), São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil.
INCT-ECCE (Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia sobre Comportamento, Cognição e Ensino), São Carlos, Brazil.
Front Neurol. 2022 May 16;13:815227. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2022.815227. eCollection 2022.
Sentence-comprehension deficits have been described in patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA). However, most instruments to address this domain in more detail and in a clinical context have not been adapted and translated into several languages, posing limitations to clinical practice and cross-language research.
The study aimed to (1) test the applicability of the Brazilian version of the Test for Reception of Grammar (TROG2-Br) to detect morphosyntactic deficits in patients with PPA; (2) investigate the association between performance in the test and sociodemographic and clinical variables (age, years of formal education, and disease duration); (3) characterize the performance of individuals presenting with the three more common variants of PPA (non-fluent, semantic, and logopenic) and mixed PPA (PPA-Mx) and analyze whether TROG-2 may assist in the distinction of these clinical profiles.
A total of 74 cognitively healthy participants and 34 individuals diagnosed with PPA were assessed with TROG2-Br. Overall scores (correct items, passed blocks), types, and categories of errors were analyzed.
In controls, block scores were significantly correlated with years of formal education (Spearman's = 0.33, = 004) but not with age. In PPA, age, education, and disease duration were not significantly associated with performance in the test. Controls presented a significantly higher performance on TROG2-Br compared to PPA individuals and their errors pattern pointed to mild general cognitive processing difficulties (attention, working memory). PPA error types pointed to processing and morphosyntactic deficits in nonfluent or agrammatic PPA, (PPA-NF/A), logopenic PPA (PPA-L), and PPA-Mx. The semantic PPA (PPA-S) subgroup was qualitatively more similar to controls (processing difficulties and lower percentage of morphosyntactic errors). TROG2-Br presented good internal consistency and concurrent validity.
Our results corroborate findings with TROG-2 in other populations. The performance of typical older adults with heterogeneous levels of education is discussed along with recommendations for clinical use of the test and future directions of research.
原发性进行性失语（PPA）患者存在句子理解缺陷。然而，大多数用于在临床环境中更详细地处理这一领域的工具尚未被改编并翻译成多种语言，这给临床实践和跨语言研究带来了限制。
本研究旨在（1）测试巴西版语法接受测试（TROG2-Br）在检测PPA患者形态句法缺陷方面的适用性；（2）研究测试成绩与社会人口统计学和临床变量（年龄、正规教育年限和疾病持续时间）之间的关联；（3）描述表现出三种最常见PPA变体（非流利型、语义型和音韵性失写型）和混合型PPA（PPA-Mx）的个体的表现，并分析TROG-2是否有助于区分这些临床特征。
共有74名认知健康参与者和34名被诊断为PPA的个体接受了TROG2-Br评估。分析了总体得分（正确项目、通过的模块）、错误类型和类别。
在对照组中，模块得分与正规教育年限显著相关（斯皮尔曼相关系数=0.33，P=0.004），但与年龄无关。在PPA患者中，年龄、教育程度和疾病持续时间与测试成绩无显著关联。与PPA个体相比，对照组在TROG2-Br上的表现显著更高，他们的错误模式表明存在轻度的一般认知加工困难（注意力、工作记忆）。PPA的错误类型表明非流利型或语法缺失型PPA（PPA-NF/A）、音韵性失写型PPA（PPA-L）和PPA-Mx存在加工和形态句法缺陷。语义型PPA（PPA-S）亚组在质量上与对照组更相似（加工困难和形态句法错误百分比更低）。TROG2-Br具有良好的内部一致性和同时效度。
我们的结果证实了TROG-2在其他人群中的研究结果。讨论了不同教育水平的典型老年人的表现，并提出了该测试的临床使用建议和未来研究方向。
