TITLE:
Performance-Associated Factors of Elderly Patients with a Low Education Level, with Acquired Language Alterations in Tests to Explore Executive Functions
AUTHORS:
Erislandy Omar-Martinez, Mariana Pino-Melgarejo, Claudia Idárraga-Cabrera, Yisel Rodríguez-Aldana Rodríguez-Aldana
KEYWORDS:
Impulsivity Control, Cognitive Flexibility, Executive Functions, Irrelevant Automatisms Inhibition, Acquired Language Disorders
JOURNAL NAME:
World Journal of Neuroscience,
Vol.7 No.3,
July
20,
2017
ABSTRACT: Introduction. Secondary alterations of executive functions occur in brain injuries together with the primary neuropsychological symptoms, irrespective of the location of the damage and the affected neural networks. Such secondary alterations of executive functions in the presence of language alterations, which is the most frequent primary neuropsychological alteration, in addition to exacerbating the linguistic processing deficit, may be associated to multiple factors inherent to the brain injury or the injured patient. Purpose. To describe the secondary neuropsychological alterations of executive functions in elderly patients with low education levels with acquired language disorders and determine general factors of the injury and of the injured patient (etiology, location, time of recovery from the injury, age, education level), associated to such secondary alterations of the Attentional Control System. Patients and Methods. The study was conducted on 68 elderly patients with a low education level with language acquired disorders, of both sexes, ranging between 60 and 80 years of age. The executive functions explored included cognitive flexibility, impulsivity control and inhibition of irrelevant automatisms, with the Trail Making Test, the Porteus Maze Test and series of loops. Statistical processing involved a Distribution of Frequencies and Multiple Ordinal Regression. Results and Conclusions. The statistical analysis found secondary neuropsychological alterations of the executive functioning in the elderly patients with language disorders of the study that are associated to the location and the time of recovery from the injury and are irrespective of age, education level and etiology of the injury.