Verbal Perseveration and Related Disorders in Primary Degenerative Dementia.

Abstract

Analysis of verbal perseverative responses on a confrontation naming task administered to 15 cases of primary degenerative dementia yielded the following results : (1) two types of verbal perseveration, namely that which occurs in the course of naming one and the same item, and that which is elicited in the immediately following task of naming, derive possibly from some common underlying mechanism, whereas other types of verbal perseveration and repetition are caused by neuropsychological processes different from one another, (2) one of the latter types of perseveration, namely "intrusion" which is produced with one or more naming tasks having intervened, may consist of two distinct subtypes of verbal perseveration, one of which is characterized by semantic confusion with its target word.