A - 121 A Comparison of Phonemic and Semantic Fluency among Individuals with Vascular Encephalopathy (VaE), Alzheimer’s Disease (<scp>ad</scp>), and Healthy Controls (HC)

Abstract Objective To examine the performance of individuals with vascular encephalopathy, Alzheimer’s disease, and healthy controls on phonemic and semantic fluency tasks. Method Participants (N = 485) were categorized based on their diagnosis: VAE (n = 129, Mage = 76, 54.26% male); ad (n = 191, Mage = 75.67, 31.41% male); and HC (n = 165, Mage = 69, 26.67% male). Quade ANCOVAs were employed to probe differences in phonemic fluency and semantic fluency across the three groups while accounting for age and education. Results Statistically significant findings were observed for the overall model for phonemic and semantic fluency, indicating strong relationships between diagnosis and task performance (Phonemic: F(4, 480) = 115.017, p &amp;lt; 0.001, ηp2 = 0.489; Semantic F(4, 480) = 280.779, p &amp;lt; 0.001, ηp2 = 0.701). A contrast analysis revealed significant differences when comparing ad to HC [Phonemic: -165.300 (SE = 12.512, t = −13.21, p &amp;lt; 0.001); Semantic −238.003 (SE = 9.583; t = −24.83, p &amp;lt; 0.001)]. A similar pattern emerged when comparing the VAE and HC groups [Phonemic: -126.471 (SE = 13.833, t = −9.14, p &amp;lt; 0.001); Semantic −181.446 (SE = 10.595, t = −17.12, p &amp;lt; 0.001)]. Conclusion Cognitive impairment type significantly influenced phonemic and semantic fluency scores, even after adjusting for age and education. ad individuals showed the lowest performance in both tasks compared to VaE individuals, who in turn performed worse than HCs. Assessing differences in phonemic and semantic fluency between disease groups is crucial for differential diagnosis and understanding specific cognitive deficits, which can guide personalized treatment strategies. These evaluations help monitor disease progression and contribute to research that may lead to improved therapeutic approaches.