[Speech disorders in senile dementia].

A neurolinguistical analysis of speech by the articulation method of E. N. Vinarskaya in patients with senile dementia (4 cases) and its combination with cerebral atherosclerosis (4 cases) permitted to detect a primary "level" defect in the speech functional system. The study demonstrated a prevalent lesion of the lower, gnostico-praxis level in combination of 2 processes and prevalence of disorders of a higher, phenological (lingual)--in cases of "pure" senile dementia. A comparison of the clinical stage of the disease and the level of lesion in the speech functional system showed a possibility of an unusual (from lower to higher) destruction in patients with senile dementia with preservation of the "ordinary" regularity from the higher to lower) in memory and intellectual impairment. The detected characters of a primary speech defect in senile atrophy permitted to allocate speech disorders in such cases to genuine aphatical (focal)--the syndrome of superior-temporal area of the left hemisphere of the temporal-acoustical aphasia according to A.R. Luria. It is demonstrated that in this defect there is an involvement and disturbance of the subcortical structures as an expression of a diffusion of the destructive process.