Language in dementia of recent referral.

Twenty-four recently referred patients with dementia were assessed on a range of language tests and a mental status test. The tasks which appeared to present the most difficulties for the patients were written spelling, pragmatic processing tasks like sentence disambiguation and proverb interpretation. 'Straight' linguistic processing tasks sensitive to aphasia, like oral reading, serial identification of objects, naming and correction of semantically incorrect sentences, appeared to present fewer problems. It is concluded that certain language tasks may be useful and sensitive detectors of developing dementia, and that in early dementia those aspects of language which depend on straight linguistic processing can be relatively preserved.