| Higher Cortical Functions | Rare Neurological Diseases  

Patel, N., Peterson, K. A., Ingram, R. U., Storey, I., Cappa, S. F., Catricala, E., ... & Garrard, P. (2022). A ‘Mini Linguistic State Examination’to classify primary progressive aphasia. Brain communications, 4(2), fcab299

A “Mini Linguistic State Examination”, was developed to assess and classify language disorders in patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA). The test is brief, covers 5 domains of language (motor speech, phonology, semantics, syntax and working memory) and scoring reflects the rates of production of 5 different types of errors. It proved to have a high reliability against standard language batteries and a good ability to discriminate PPA subtypes.

The authors developed a brief instrument to assess and classify language disorders in patients with  primary progressive aphasia (PPA), a syndrome that can be found in degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer´s Disease and frontotemporal dementia. The test, “Mini Linguistic State Examination”, was designed to be “brief, usable by non-specialists after minimal training, sensitive to the three archetypal syndromes but also able to detect atypical symptom clusters”. The test includes 11 brief subtests,  that cover 5 domains of language (motor speech, phonology, semantics, syntax and working memory) and scoring  reflects the rates of production of 5 different types of errors during testing (i) motor aspects of speech; (ii) semantic knowledge; (iii) phonology; (iv) syntax and (v) auditory-verbal working memory.   It was applied in 54 patients and 30 matched controls and revealed high reliability against standard language batteries and a good ability to discriminate PPA subtypes.  This test contributes to increase the consistency and uniformity of PPA clinical classification and facilitates screening for cohort-based research.

Key Points:

  • Primary progressive aphasia has three recognized subtypes, which identification contributes to
  • infer the underlying dysfunctional areas and possible pathology.
  • The Mini Linguistic State Examination (MLSE), takes about 19 minutes, correlates with language batteries and is able to identify the profiles of the three PPA subtypes.
  • MLS may contribute to improve PPA subtype diagnosis uniformity
  • MLSE is freely available  for the purposes of non commercial research

References:

  1. Mesulam M-M. Slowly progressive aphasia without generalized de mentia. Ann Neurol. 1982;11:592–598.
  2. Gorno-Tempini ML, Hillis AE, Weintraub S, et al. Classification of primary progressive aphasia and its variants. Neurology. 2011;76:1006–1014.
  3. Patel N, Peterson KA, Ingram RU, Storey I, Cappa SF, Catricala E, Halai A, Patterson KE, Lambon Ralph MA, Rowe JB, Garrard P. A 'Mini Linguistic State Examination' to classify primary progressive aphasia. Brain Commun. 2021 Dec 21;4(2):fcab299. 

Co-author(s):

Noa Bregman, Tel Aviv Medical Center
Pedro Nascimento Alves, Faculty of Medicine University of Lisbon

Publish on behalf of the Scientific Panel on Higher cortical functions

Back