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LETTER TO THE EDITOR |
John A. Hartford/Atlantic Philanthropies ,Claire M. Fagin Post Doctoral Fellow University of California, San Francisco San Francisco, CA 94143-0610 E-mail: Ann.Mayo{at}ucsf.edu
Dear Dr. Noelker:
I found Dr. Katinka Dijkstra's article regarding language production among adults with dementia fascinating from a study protocol point of view (Dijkstra, Bourgeois, Youmans, & Hancock, 2006). Observing the adults actually teach in order to evaluate discourse resulted in findings that should help us better deconstruct our assumptions regarding language among adults with dementia.
However, I did want to share one major concern that was problematic for me as I attempted to understand the study results. The researchers did not provide demographic information regarding the type of dementia disorders among the adults with dementia. It would have been helpful to know the number of adults who were categorized as having semantic dementia as well as how those adults versus "other-type" dementia adults may have performed in the study. Was this included in the analysis and just not reported?
I understand that the study sample was small and further splitting the sample into subtypes would not be statistically appropriate. However, the sample size for the study was most likely too small overall. And, this did not preclude the researchers from reporting their results.
Translating this study's findings into practice makes it difficult to know what type of adult with dementia to target for language-preserving strategies. The cost of health care today does not afford us the opportunity to implement such an interesting protocol as a practice intervention with all of our adults with dementia. If any information regarding semantic dementia versus other-type dementia is available, I would be interested in that information.
Sincerely,
Reference
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