When passives are easier than actives.

I met WR when I helped set up a recording session in a clinic in Sheffield. I was a PhD student at that time. WR had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia, which is a type of dementia that first manifests as a language impairment. WR was a friendly, gentle person who looked young for being 62. His language production was poor. When he spoke, he had the tendency to connect words with "is a" in an ungrammatical manner ("Mary is a holiday is a Turkey"). He preferred using pen and paper, and while his written language was also poor, communication was better through it. There was no sign that WR had problems beyond language. His non-verbal IQ was above average and as far as I can tell he was leading a very active life. At the time we carried out our research, WR's brain showed relatively small signs of degeneration. When Rosemary Varley and I discussed MRI scans with a radiologist at Royal Hallamshire Hospital, he said that if WR had come in with different problems, such as chronic migraine, it may have gone undetected at first glance. But it was there. Scans showed grey matter reduction in frontotemporal areas both left and right.

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