A-74Qualitative Performance of WAIS-III Block Design in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease (original) (raw)

This study examines the performance of AD patients on the WAIS-III Block Design subtest to analyze the nature of constructional deficits. The sample is 15 patients with AD (5 men and 10 women, mean age = 73.6; mean MMSE = 21.8) and 15 healthy controls (5 men and 10 women, mean age = 74.1; mean MMSE = 29.1). All participants were administered the Estonian version of WAIS-III Block Design subtest. In addition to standard scoring we also noted qualitative observations: number of moves within time limit, proportion of blocks correctly placed on each design, single block errors (divided to placement errors and rotation errors), broken configuration errors (when parameters of the model were not accounted) and design rotations (when entire design was rotated more than 30°). AD patients (M = 7.4, SD = 3.9) performed significantly worse than control group (M = 11.5, SD = 3.1), U = 176.0, p < .008. The control group made more moves than patients (U = 158.0; p < .02). They also had propo...