고령자의 개인 요인 및 표현언어 능력과 정보전달 능력의 상관

Purpose: Task of discourse production is useful for evaluating integrated communication ability in elderly people and the ability of discourse production is related to various cognitive and linguistic abilities. The purpose of this study was to investigate demographica (gender, education level, and performance of screening test for evaluating mental state) and expressive language factors (abilities of word production, semantic sentence production and syntactic sentence production) related to ratio of CIU (Correct information Unit) in healthy senior citizens. Methods: Sixty healthy Korean senior citizens (30 males and 30 females) participated in this study. The tasks of this study included the Korean-Mini Mental State Examination (K-MMSE), Korean-Boston Naming Test (K-BNT), semantic sentence production task (verbal definition), syntactic sentence production task (picture description task using Boston cookie-theft picture: words per utterance) and CIU ratio (picture description task using Boston cookie-theft picture: CIU analysis). Results: There was no significant difference by gender, but education level and K-MMSE score had a meaningful positive correlation with the CIU ratio in the demographics factor. Second, the performances of K-BNT verbal definition task had a meaningful positive correlation with CIU ratio in language abilities. Third, the education level, K-MMSE score, and semantic sentence production task were a significant predictor for CIU ratio in results of stepwise multiple regression. Conclusions: These results suggested that education level, performances of screening test for evaluating mental state and semantic aspects (abilities of word production and semantic sentence production) of expressive language are related closely to CIU ratio in healthy senior citizens. The results of this study can be used for evaluation and discourse intervention in elderly patients with neurogenic communication disorders.