Dementia is a neurodegenerative brain disorder that leads to a progressive loss of cognitive functions such as memory, orientation and language processing. For example, Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a type of cognitive impairment that primarily involves a progressive loss of language functions while memory, reasoning and visual perception are left unaffected by the disease in the early stages.

Due to the progressive loss of cognitive functions, there is a need to extend the existing procedures for treatment of language functions in non-progressive diseases (e.g. aphasia following stroke) and to develop additional methods for behavioral interventions and the evaluation of their outcome.
Therefore, a sub-project deals with the question of which modifications are necessary in existing intervention protocols in order to apply them in PPA for maintaining language skills for as long as possible.
Sometimes pro-active approaches may also be useful, like focusing on compensatory devices to communicate (i.e., augmented and alternative communication, AAC) and initiating their use at an early stage of the disease.

We cooperate with the Centre for Applied Psycho- and Patholinguistics Berlin (ZAPP Berlin) and the Ernst-von-Bergmann Klinikum in Potsdam.
One of the subprojects is funded by the Society of Friends of the Centre for Applied Patholinguistics.