Specificity of Proverbs and Sayings Interpretation by Russian-Speaking Patients with Cognitive Impairment

Abstract

The ability to understand and correctly interpret the figurative meaning of constructions (metaphors, paremiological units, idioms) is a very significant characteristics of adequate verbal thinking, a subtle diagnostic marker that contributes to the early reveal of cognitive decline. Cognitive impairment is a serious interdisciplinary problem that requires the involvement of specialists in different fields, including psychologists and linguists, both in the diagnostics and in the procedure for tracking dynamics during therapy. Among different factors that cause cognitive impairment, dysmetabolic diseases is an important group, and special attention should be paid to diabetes mellitus – this issue is extremely relevant due to the widespread prevalence of this disease among the population. To reveal early the onset of cognitive decline in patients with this disease special instruments are required. The article analyzes the results of a study connected with specificity of understanding the figurative meaning of units in patients with cognitive disorders identified by standardized neurocognitive tests. The author developed a subtest aimed at assessing the understanding of the figurative meaning of paremiological units; linguistic validation of this subtest was carried out in a sample of informants without cognitive decline, as well as in a sample of patients with cognitive impairment. The research involved 154 male and female informants over the age of 45 years. Cognitive status was assessed using a screening neurocognitive test (MoCA-test, Russian version). The created diagnostic subtest showed a correlation with the data of an instrument widely used in medical practice; in addition, it was proved that the paremiological subtest is able to detect cognitive decline already at an early stage of its manifestation and can be recommended as a tool designed to assess cognitive status and track its dynamics.

Keywords

• paremiological units
• figurative meaning of utterance
• proverbs
• sayings
• cognitive impairment
• verbal thinking
• diabetic encephalopathy
• neurocognitive tests