Conversational Behaviours in Clinical Diagnosis: An Empirical Study of Question–Answering of Dementia in Alzheimer-Type Patients

Question-Answer sequences are common in neuropsychological assessments which are important for the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In this article, Conversation Analysis (CA) is used to investigate the organisation of question-answer sequences and to explore AD patients’ conversational behaviours in neuropsychological testing. Based on video recordings, we have analyzed the patient’s direct answers and the patient’s initiation of repairs in response to testing questions. Meanwhile, our findings demonstrate that some patients with AD exhibit interactional competence in turn-taking, completing adjacency pairs, initiating repairs, and providing accounts. This suggests that some patients with AD can deal with challenges and actively engage in testing interactions despite cognitive limitations. This study can provide implications for the administration of neuropsychological tests and intervention strategies for patients with AD.