Language in Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract
Alzheimer’s disease is a prototypical neurodegenerative disease of ageing. Language disorders are part of the clinical picture of Alzheimer’s disease but are most often associated with other cognitive disorders that are responsible for the progressive reduction in activities, social interactions, and communicative autonomy. The aim of this chapter is to describe the language abilities of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, their progression as the disease advances, and their consequences on patients’ daily lives. Furthermore, it intends to emphasize the adaptive behaviors that patients can put in place, and to examine how patients can be aided in sustaining some communicative skills. Overall, this chapter aims to connect different language domains—such as phonetics and semantics—to a broader discourse and communication setting. This will help clarify the context in which language deficits commonly occur, as well as the clinical and research challenges surrounding the study of discourse processing.