Verbal fluency performance in patients with multiple sclerosis

Introduction: Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system. This disease is rarely accompanied by abnormalities of PNS. A common complaint is a decrease in verbal fluency. Therefore, verbal fluency assessment is necessary for analysis of these patients’ ability to produce language content. Current researches show that participants with MS are substantially but similarly impaired on test of verbal fluency. The main aim in undertaking the present study is to determine the pattern of verbal fluency deficit in RRMS patients who speak Persian in comparison with matched healthy controls. Methods: The verbal fluency performance of 30 Persian-speaker patients with multiple sclerosis was compared with that of 30 age-, sex-, and education-matched controls, and the results were analyzed by Independent T-test. Results: Twenty four (80%) of patients were female and six (20%) of them were male, with the mean age of 31.35 years. Consistent with previous investigations, the RRMS patients produced fewer words. Conclusions: It can be concluded that verbal fluency deficits in MS follows a unique pattern which is associated with substantial levels of impairment on measures of semantic and phonemic fluency.