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Losing her Marples

I posted this to doc_mystery because it seemed to be right up his alley, but I figured it would be of interest to the rest of the peeps out there.

A pair of professors from the U of T are investigating Agatha Christie's novels to see if there is any evidence in them of Alzheimers. They feel that evidence of advancing Alzheimers will be visible in textual analysis before other signs.

Turning to indefinite nouns is common as one ages, says Lancashire, as specific words become harder to reach. Severe vocabulary decline, however, indicates cognitive degeneration: “It suggests there’s a problem in retrieval from long-term memory.” More will be gleaned when the results from more complex analysis of Christie’s work are available in the late summer.

To contextualize the findings, they’ll also need a baseline study of an author who didn’t suffer from dementia to deduce how language changes with normal aging, says Lancashire. He believes a similar screen of the work of H.G. Wells, who had a long, prolific career without any indication of cognitive impairment, could provide that.

Whether textual analysis will ever become a routine diagnostic tool is a question mark. A decline in written skills can be a significant early marker of Alzheimer’s, says Morris Freedman, the head of neurology at Baycrest. “Because writing is a learned, not a natural skill, it breaks down early,” he says. But he’s skeptical such ambitious analysis is practical: “You’d have to have large samples over time,” he says.

Via james_nicoll.

(no subject)

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