The Predictive Value of Memory Strategies for Alzheimer's Disease in Subjects with Mild Cognitive Impairment (original) (raw)

Comparison of Cognitive Functions Between Patients with Alzheimer Disease, Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Healthy People

Archives of Neuroscience

Background: There is a growing need for predicting Alzheimer disease (AD) based on emerging neurocognitive dysfunction before the onset of the disease. Objectives: According to neuropathological changes in the mesial temporal lobe (MTL) before the onset of clinical symptoms and the relationship between the function of these structures and cognitive functions (such as visual memory, working memory, and new learning), we aimed to investigate the possibility of these cognitive functions as markers of transition from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to AD. Methods: In this case-control study, 15 patients with AD, 18 patients with MCI (from memory clinics of Tehran University of Medical Sciences), and 15 healthy people were compared using the 3 subtests of the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB), including spatial working memory (SWM), pattern recognition memory (PRM), and paired-associate learning (PAL). The tests were performed between 9 AM and 12 noon. The scor...

Patterns of Verbal Memory Performance in Mild Cognitive Impairment, Alzheimer Disease, and Normal Aging

Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, 2006

Objective: Individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) typically demonstrate memory loss that falls between normal aging (NA) and Alzheimer disease (AD), but little is known about the pattern of memory dysfunction in MCI. Method: To explore this issue, California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) performance was examined across groups of MCI, AD, and NA. Results: MCI subjects displayed a pattern of deficits closely resembling that of AD, characterized by reduced learning, rapid forgetting, increased recency recall, elevated intrusion errors, and poor recognition discriminability with increased falsepositives. MCI performance was significantly worse than that of controls and better than that of AD patients across memory indices. Although qualitative analysis of CVLT profiles may be useful in individual cases, discriminant function analysis revealed that delayed recall and total learning were the best aspects of learning/memory on the CVLT in differentiating MCI, AD, and NA. Conclusions: These findings support the position that amnestic MCI represents an early point of decline on the continuum of AD that is different from normal aging.

Performance on the Geriatric Learning and Memory Battery by persons with mild and moderate stage Alzheimer's disease

The author has granted a nonexclusive licence allowing the National Li'brary of Canada to reproduce, loan, distribute or sell copies of this thesis in microform, paper or electronic formats. The author retains ownership of the copyright in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts h m it may be printed or otheMlise reproduced without the author's pamission. L'auteur a accord6 une licence w n exclusive pennettant i la Biblioth@ue nationale du Canada de repr0Ctpk.e' p r h , distribuer ou vendre des copies de cette th&se sous la f m e de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papia ou sur format electronique. L'autew conserve la propri6te du h i t d'auteur qui prot&ge cette thbse. Ni la th6se ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci ne doivent &re imprim& ou autrement reproduits sans son ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to examine the usefulness of the Geriatric Learning and Memory Battery (G-LAMB) for assessing leaming and memory performance in persons with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Individuals with AD often perform so poorly on standard memory tests that assessing learning and memory strengths and weaknesses or tracking changes over time is, at best, difficult. The G-LAMB is a recently developed test composed of a Paragraph and a simple Figure and was designed specifically to help assess and monitor verbal and visuospatial leaming and memory performance in people already diagnosed with cognlive deficits. One group for whom this test may have particular utility are people with AD who experience both verbal and visuospatial leaming and memory changes and who can live for extended periods of time post-diagnosis. Alongside efforts to identify an etiology and cure for AD, there is an emerging emphasis on quality of life issues for both those living with AD and their caregivers. In this context, the ability to assess deficits, prescribe treatment and then monitor changes becomes critical. In the current study, the G-LAMB verbal (Paragraph) and visuospatial (Figure) subtests were administered to individuals with mild and moderate stages of AD. Findings suggest that the G-LAMB is a useful tool for assessing leaming and memory performance in those with AD. First, the scores of individuals with Mild AD are high enough to allow one to monitor changes in learning and memory, at least into the moderate stages of the disease. Second, it is possible to differentiate the performance levels of those with Mild and Moderate AD, particularly on the Paragraph subtest.

Subjective memory and strategy use in mild cognitive impairment and healthy aging

Psychology and Neuroscience, 2013

Limited information is available about subjective memory and strategy use in seniors with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We investigated whether differences exist in the perception of changes in memory, perceived frequency of forgetting, overall memory evaluation, and strategy use between seniors with MCI and unimpaired older adults. The study included 56 participants, aged 60 years and older, including 28 normal controls (NC) and 28 MCI patients. The participants completed the Short Cognitive Performance Test, the Story and Grocery list recall tasks, the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale, the Memory Complaint Questionnaire for the perception of changes in episodic memory, the McNair Frequency of Forgetting Questionnaire, and a single question that evaluated overall memory. The Bousfield semantic clustering measure was calculated to assess semantic clustering for list recall. The number of underlined words during story encoding was calculated to assess strategy use. Participants with MCI had significantly worse scores on Story and Grocery list recall, semantic clustering, and overall memory evaluation. No differences were found in the number of underlined words. List recall was significantly correlated with semantic clustering in both groups (NC: r = .58, p = .001; MCI: r = .57, p = .002). Participants with MCI appeared to be less efficacious when using memory strategies, which may be associated with poor memory performance.

Cognitive and behavioral abnormalities in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment, and subjective memory complaints

Current Psychology, 2023

In this study, we investigated the ability of commonly used neuropsychological tests to detect cognitive and functional decline across the Alzheimer's disease (AD) continuum. Moreover, as preclinical AD is a key area of investigation, we focused on the ability of neuropsychological tests to distinguish the early stages of the disease, such as individuals with Subjective Memory Complaints (SMC). This study included 595 participants from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) dataset who were cognitively normal (CN), SMC, mild cognitive impairment (MCI; early or late stage), or AD. Our cognitive measures included the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), the Everyday Cognition Questionnaire (ECog), the Functional Abilities Questionnaire (FAQ), the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale (ADAS-Cog), the Montreal Cognitive Assessment scale (MoCA), and the Trail Making test (TMT-B). Overall, our results indicated that the ADAS-13, RAVLT (learning), FAQ, ECog, and MoCA were all predictive of the AD progression continuum. However, TMT-B and the RAVLT (immediate and forgetting) were not significant predictors of the AD continuum. Indeed, contrary to our expectations ECog self-report (partner and patient) were the two strongest predictors in the model to detect the progression from CN to AD. Accordingly, we suggest using the ECog (both versions), RAVLT (learning), ADAS-13, and the MoCA to screen all stages of the AD continuum. In conclusion, we infer that these tests could help clinicians effectively detect the early stages of the disease (e.g., SMC) and distinguish the different stages of AD.

Prospective and Retrospective Memory Complaints in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild Alzheimer's Disease

Brain Impairment, 2009

C urrent management attempts for Alzheimer's disease (AD) focus on the identification of individuals in the preclinical stage. This has led to the development of the diagnostic concept of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), which applies to individuals with declining cognitive abilities but largely preserved everyday functioning. Previous findings indicate that prospective memory deficits are a sensitive marker of preclinical AD and that awareness of prospective memory failures is particularly high, based on its dependence on executive functions. Thus, the goal of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of subjective prospective versus retrospective memory complaints for an initial screening for MCI and their respective associations with executive functions. 71 healthy older adults, 27 MCI patients, and 9 patients with mild AD completed the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ) and three executive functions tests. The healthy and the MCI group could not be distinguished by their level of subjective prospective or retrospective memory complaints, but the mild AD patients differed from the other groups by complaining more about retrospective than prospective memory failures. For the healthy older adults, the prospective memory complaints were correlated to an inhibition test, whereas they did not correlate with any of the executive function tests in the MCI patients. In contrast, in both groups the retrospective memory complaints were related to a task switching test. The findings are discussed with respect to differences between the three groups in cognitive abilities, attention to failures of, use of mnemonic aids for, and everyday demands of prospective and retrospective memory.

Staging of the cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease: insights from a detailed neuropsychological investigation of mild cognitive impairment and mild Alzheimer's disease

International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 2011

Objective: The decline of episodic memory in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is well established, but the exact appearance and staging of deficits in other cognitive domains is sometimes contentious. The current investigation attempted to elucidate the appearance of additional cognitive deficits in the nonepisodic domains and to understand these deficits with respect to the known pathological staging of AD. Methods: A cross-sectional investigation compared cognitively normal age-matched controls with patients with mild AD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) using a detailed neuropsychological assessment. Results: The systematic investigation of cognitive performance across the major cognitive domains demonstrates that the appearance of additional cognitive deficits in MCI and AD can be predicted, with impaired semantic cognition performance pre-empting the appearance of attention/executive dysfunction and visuospatial deficits in the majority of patients with MCI. Conclusions: This progressive pattern of cognitive deficits fits with the known pathological staging of AD, and the data further highlight the relative rarity of pure amnestic MCI. These results indicate that any neuropsychological test battery used to assess patients with MCI should include language and semantic memory tests in addition to typical episodic memory tests, as changes within this domain might be a sensitive indication of incipient AD.

Mild cognitive impairment: a risk indicator of later dementia, or a preclinical phase of the disease?

International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 2008

Objectives The proposals for classifying the transitional range between normal, ageing-associated cognitive dysfunctions and those suggestive of evolution towards dementia do not clarify whether the profiles are risk indicators of later cognitive impairment or represent preclinical phases of dementia. Methods Retrospective study of the baseline neuropsychological performance of ten subjects with subjective complaints of memory loss which evolved to dementia within 2 years and who meet clinical and neurological diagnosis for Probable Alzheimer's Disease (Progression group). They were compared with 34 normal subjects (Normative group), 33 patients with subjective complaints of memory who in 2 year did not evolve towards dementia and presented a stable profile (Stable group), and 47 Alzheimer's patients (Alzheimer group). A broad neuropsychological battery was administered to assess a range of cognitive functions. Results The Progression group presented a globally poor baseline neuropsychological performance, except in Working Memory, with clear deficits in Episodic Memory and Visual Memory. In the logistic regression analysis, Delayed Verbal Memory was significant as prognostic value for 80 Á 5% of cases. Conclusion Deficit on Episodic and Visual Memory at least 1.5 SD below T ¼ 50 are preclinical manifestations of dementia in subjects with complain of memory loss. The use of broad neuropsychological batteries and the quantitative assessment of deficits is essential to identify and predict the risk of dementia.

Learning Strategies and Verbal Memory Deficits on the Shiraz Verbal Learning Test in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease and Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

Iranian Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Background: Much remains unknown regarding the nature of the memory profile of individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). One of the questions is whether they first encounter an encoding/storage defect or retrieval memory profile difficulties. Objectives: The present study aimed to shed light on this by evaluating learning strategies and memory process deficits in individuals with aMCI and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Methods: The Shiraz Verbal Learning Test (SVLT) was used to assess and compare verbal memory performance and learning strategies among three groups of individuals, including patients with aMCI, AD cases, and healthy individuals. The study groups were compared using most indices of the SVLT. Results: A pattern of memory impairment was found in the aMCI group, and the indicators included defects in immediate learning, a poor learning slope, rapid forgetting, and a poor function in delayed recall. This was similar to the representations of the individuals wi...