Cognition and language in dementia patients: Contributions from behavior analysis.

Dementia comprises incurable neurodegenerative disorders that mainly affect cognitive function and language. At present, pharmacological and neuropsychological rehabilitation are the interventions that are most often recommended. This paper aimed to evaluate how behavior analysis is helping in the development of nonpharmacological interventions. A search was conducted of databases and journals on behavior analysis using the descriptors Aging, Alzheimer, Dementia, Elderly, Behavioral Gerontology, Behavioral Approach, and Behavioral Therapy. From the 15,024 publications retrieved, 16 were selected as behavior‐analysis research on cognition and language. We present and discuss the main results from these publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]