Utility of a Spanish version of Three Words-Three Shapes Test to detect memory impairment in primary progressive aphasia.

INTRODUCTION: Three Words-Three Shapes (3W3S) is a bedside test that assesses verbal and non-verbal memory and has proven useful in staging memory decline in amnestic disorders and primary progressive aphasia. Given its simple structure, the 3W3S can be easily adapted to other languages maintaining the original shapes and only modifying the words. We aim to validate a Spanish version of the 3W3S test and establish whether memory loss patterns present in amnesic disorders associated with Alzheimer's etiology and PPA were correctly characterized. METHOD: The translation and adaptation of the 3W3S were performed according to standardized guidelines and applied to a cohort of patients with Dementia of Alzheimer's type (DAT = 20), mild cognitive impairment (aMCI= 20), primary progressive aphasia (PPA = 20), and healthy controls (HC = 20). RESULTS: In verbal memory performance, PPA patients' score was lower than that of MCI and HC and similar to DAT's in the effortless encoding (p < 0.001), delayed recall (p < 0.001), and recognition (p < 0.012). For non-verbal performance, PPA patients performed better than DAT and similar to HC and MCI subjects (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Results show good applicability of 3W3S to determine memory function in PPA patients, independently from language ability. Visual and verbal components of memory are dissociated in PPA.

Types of acquired dyslexia in Spanish-speaking patients with aphasia.

The different types of acquired dyslexia described by cognitive neuropsychology have been observed in single-case and case series studies in different languages. However, no multipatient study of Spanish-speaking individuals has been reported that uses the same criteria and tasks to identify each participant's acquired dyslexia pattern. In this study, we analyzed participants' performance in three tasks (oral reading of words and nonwords, visual lexical decision with pseudohomophones, and written homophone comprehension) among 16 Spanish-speaking patients with aphasia. We identified 9 patients with acquired phonological dyslexia, 3 with acquired surface dyslexia, and 4 with acquired mixed dyslexia. The results of this research provide more information about the relative frequency of each type of acquired dyslexia in Spanish, which could be used to help design more appropriate treatments for rehabilitation. Identifying which processes have been impaired and which have been preserved will allow professionals to plan more specific interventions.