The Use of Profanity During Letter Fluency Tasks in Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer Disease
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: To assess whether the production of profanity during letter fluency testing distinguishes frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer disease (AD) patients. BACKGROUND: Alterations in language and social behavior typify FTD spectrum disorders. Nonetheless, in can be difficult to distinguish pathologically defined frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) from AD clinically. Assessing verbal fluency by having patients generate words beginning with specific letters in a given period of time can yield diverse information of diagnostic use. METHOD: Words produced during FAS letter fluency testing were reviewed, and instances of the use of "f*ck," "*ss," and "sh*t" and other words felt to be inappropriate were sought. The frequency of these words was compared between clinically diagnosed FTD and AD patients using χ(2) tests. RESULTS: We found that 6/32 (18.8%) patients with FTD generated the word "f*ck" during the "F" trial as opposed to none of 38 patients with AD (P=0.007). Patients who said "f*ck" had diagnoses of either behavioral variant FTD (3/15), progressive nonfluent aphasia (2/8), or semantic dementia (1/3). CONCLUSIONS: Though the specific neuropathology in these cases is uncertain, generation of "f*ck" during letter fluency testing seems to have use in differentiating FTD from AD.
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The use of profanity during verbal fluency testing is more suggestive of bvFTD than AD.
“Interestingly, the use of profanity during verbal fluency testing has been shown to be more suggestive of bvFTD than AD [26].”
From Diagnosing the frontal variant of Alzheimer’s disease: a clinician’s yellow brick road (2017) · cites this paper as [26]
The Results report that saying “f*ck” during letter-fluency testing was significantly more frequent in the FTD group than in the AD group; three of the six FTD patients who said it had bvFTD. The finding was not specific to bvFTD, and the Results say rates for other profane or inappropriate words were not significantly higher. Thus the claim broadens both the diagnostic group and the type of profanity supported by the study. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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Background
- Authors
- Ringman, J. M., Kwon, E., Flores, D. L., Rotko, C., Mendez, M. F., & Lu, P.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Venue
- Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology
- Published
- 2010-09
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 159-164
- ISSN
- 1543-3633 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3594691
- OpenAlex
- W2045105551
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2021: 3 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 0.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Locations
- Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (P50AG016570, P50-AG 16570, R01AG034499)
- National Center for Research Resources ((M01 RR00865), M01RR000865)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Historical and Modern Theater Studies
- Keywords
- swearing, phonemic fluency, frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal lobar degeneration, differential diagnosis, behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, progressive nonfluent aphasia, semantic dementia, verbal fluency
- MeSH terms
- Alzheimer Disease, Humans, Inhibition, Psychological, Language, Language Tests, Middle Aged, Reference Values, Social Behavior, Verbal Behavior, Case-Control Studies, Matched-Pair Analysis, Frontotemporal Dementia, Stroop Test
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