Language Aspects of Patients with Multiple Sclerosis
Ali Rıza Sonkaya1, Zeynep Zeliha Bayazit21Department of Neurology, Okmeydani Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey, 2Department of Linguistics, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey
Objectives: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease among the neurodegenerative disorders of the Central Nervous System (CNS). It affects the motor, sensory, cerebellar, cognitive, language functions, etc. Since beginning the identification of language functions abnormalities in MS, the language performance evaluating provides the significant contribution to physicians in diagnosis and follow-up of the MS patients. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the language aspects of MS from a linguistic perspective. Methods: The study was conducted with 35 participants diagnosed with Relapsing Remitting MS (RRMS) and 35 controls. All of the study participants were asked about their life. Phonetic, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic features of their speech were investigated. Statistical analyses were performed using PASW Statistics for Windows, Version 18.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) and p<0.05 was considered significant. Results: More linguistic errors were displayed by MS patients on every measure compared with the healthy subjects. Conclusion: Speech analysis can provide additional contributions to clinicians evaluating language performance and abnormalities in patients with MS.
Cite This Article
Sonkaya A, Bayazit Z. Language Aspects of Patients with Multiple Sclerosis. EJMI. 2018; 2(3): 133-138
Corresponding Author: Ali Rıza Sonkaya