Confrontation naming impairment in dementia.

The effects of dementia etiology and severity on the confrontation naming ability of individuals with Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases and multi-infarct dementia are investigated. Although naming impairment is reported as a consequence of dementing illness, confrontation naming is not found to be significantly impaired in mildly involved patients. Further, although moderate Huntington's and Parkinson's patients made more naming errors than normals, only moderate Alzheimer's disease patients are found to be significantly different. Regardless of etiology, most misnamings are found to be semantically related or semantically and visually related to the stimulus. Results challenge the theory that misnamings of dementia patients result primarily from misperception.