St George's/Oxford/Southampton - Alzheimer's and the word

Neurologists are investigating how Alzheimer's disease affects the written language of sufferers. A team at St George's, University of London, working with colleagues at the universities of Oxford and Southampton, is hoping to identify changes in written language caused by the disease. Peter Garrard, a neurologist at St George's, has used computers to analyse the novels of Iris Murdoch, who suffered from the disease. "Changes in her language use could be identified in her last novel before anyone was aware of any symptoms of her Alzheimer's," he said.