Anosognosia for memory impairment in Alzheimer's disease

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 180-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgina Stewart ◽  
William J. McGeown ◽  
Michael F. Shanks ◽  
Annalena Venneri
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Memory Impairment ◽  
Functional Performance ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Memory Deficits ◽  
Discrepancy Scores

Stewart G, McGeown WJ, Shanks MF, Venneri A. Anosognosia for memory impairment in Alzheimer's disease.ObjectiveTo investigate whether patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) were able to alter their awareness of memory deficits after exposure to a memory task.Methods:Thirty normal older adults and 23 mild AD patients participated in the study. Anosognosia was assessed using discrepancies between self- and informant-evaluations of cognitive and functional performance. Participants estimated their performance on the Verbal Paired Associates task at different points in time (before, immediately after the task and after a 1-h delay).Results:AD patients were generally less able to judge their memory abilities than healthy older adults, and tended to overestimate their task performance beforehand. Their prediction accuracy increased immediately after the task, but after a 1-h delay, they again misjudged their abilities at pretesting accuracy levels. Self-carer discrepancy scores of awareness of deficits in memory and other areas correlated significantly with memory tests but not with other neuropsychological tasks in the assessment, and larger discrepancy scores were associated with poorer performance.Conclusion:AD patients can monitor their task performance online, but are unable to maintain awareness of their deficits over time. Loss of awareness of memory deficits (or of any other deficits) in early stage AD may indicate damage to a system which updates a personal knowledge base with recent information. Failure to retain this information impedes abstraction from episodic to semantic memory.

The utility of a non-verbal prospective memory measure as a sensitive marker for early-stage Alzheimer's disease in Hong Kong

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. S. Tse ◽  
J. F. Chang ◽  
Ada W. T. Fung ◽  
Linda C. W. Lam ◽  
K. T. Hau ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Reaction Time ◽  
Prospective Memory ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Community Dwelling ◽  
Time Accuracy

ABSTRACTBackground:With the proportion of older adults in Hong Kong projected to double in size in the next 30 years, it is important to develop measures for detecting individuals in the earliest stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD, 0.5 in Clinical Dementia Rating, CDR). We tested the utility of a non-verbal prospective memory task (PM, ability to remember what one has to do when a specific event occurs in the future) as an early marker for AD in Hong Kong Chinese.Methods:A large community dwelling sample of older adults who are healthy controls (CDR 0, N = 125), in the earliest stage of AD (CDR 0.5, N = 125), or with mild AD (CDR 1, N = 30) participated in this study. Their reaction time/accuracy data were analyzed by mixed-factor analyses of variance to compare the performance of the three CDR groups. Logistic regression analyses were performed to test the discriminative power of these measures for CDR 0 versus 0.5 participants.Results:Prospective memory performance declined as a function of AD severity: CDR 0 > CDR 0.5 > CDR 1, suggesting the effects of early-stage AD and AD progression on PM. After partialling out the variance explained by psychometric measures (e.g., ADAS-Cog), reaction time/accuracy measures that reflected the PM still significantly discriminated between CDR 0 versus 0.5 participants in most of the cases.Conclusion:The effectiveness of PM measures in discriminating individuals in the earliest stage of AD from healthy older adults suggests that these measures should be further developed as tools for early-stage AD discrimination.

scholarly journals Financial Capacity and Regional Cerebral Tau in Cognitively Normal Older Adults, Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Christopher Gonzalez ◽  
Nicole S. Tommasi ◽  
Danielle Briggs ◽  
Michael J. Properzi ◽  
Rebecca E. Amariglio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Cognitively Normal ◽  
Financial Capacity ◽  
Posterior Cingulate ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal

Background: Financial capacity is often one of the first instrumental activities of daily living to be affected in cognitively normal (CN) older adults who later progress to amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia. Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the association between financial capacity and regional cerebral tau. Methods: Cross-sectional financial capacity was assessed using the Financial Capacity Instrument –Short Form (FCI-SF) in 410 CN, 199 MCI, and 61 AD dementia participants who underwent flortaucipir tau positron emission tomography from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). Linear regression models with backward elimination were used with FCI-SF total score as the dependent variable and regional tau and tau-amyloid interaction as predictors of interest in separate analyses. Education, age sex, Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test Total Learning, and Trail Making Test B were used as covariates. Results: Significant associations were found between FCI-SF and tau regions (entorhinal: p <  0.001; inferior temporal: p <  0.001; dorsolateral prefrontal: p = 0.01; posterior cingulate: p = 0.03; precuneus: p <  0.001; and supramarginal gyrus: p = 0.005) across all participants. For the tau-amyloid interaction, significant associations were found in four regions (amyloid and dorsolateral prefrontal tau interaction: p = 0.005; amyloid and posterior cingulate tau interaction: p = 0.005; amyloid and precuneus tau interaction: p <  0.001; and amyloid and supramarginal tau interaction: p = 0.002). Conclusion: Greater regional tau burden was modestly associated with financial capacity impairment in early-stage AD. Extending this work with longitudinal analyses will further illustrate the utility of such assessments in detecting clinically meaningful decline, which may aid clinical trials of early-stage AD.

Possible selves and illness: A comparison of individuals with Parkinson's disease, early-stage Alzheimer's disease, and healthy older adults

2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie D. Frazier ◽  
Victoria Cotrell ◽  
Karen Hooker
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Parkinson’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Parkinson's Disease ◽  
Possible Selves ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Healthy Older Adults ◽  
Patient Groups ◽  
The Impact

This study examined how future self-representations are affected by two different chronic illnesses, one focused on cognitive losses, early-stage Alzheimer's disease (AD), and one focused on physical losses, Parkinson's disease (PD). The impact of illness on possible selves (perceptions of self in the future) was made salient by a comparison with healthy older adults in order to better understand developmental issues in later life. Findings show that although there were no differences in the total number of domains reported by the groups, specific domains were reported differently by patient groups and all domains were likely to become infused with illness. As expected, patient groups had less self-efficacy and lower outcome expectancies for their future selves, and PD patients reported less distance from their feared selves. Although these findings are intuitive, this is the first empirical effort to document the impact of illness on older adults' self-representations. Group differences are explained in terms of disease context, and the importance of possible selves and self-regulatory functions as therapeutic mechanisms for adaptation to illness are emphasised.

scholarly journals Measuring Physical Activity in Older Adults With and Without Early Stage Alzheimer's Disease

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amber S. Watts ◽  
Eric D. Vidoni ◽  
Natalia Loskutova ◽  
David K. Johnson ◽  
Jeffrey M. Burns
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Early Stage

Outcome of a Targeted Nutritional Intervention Among Older Adults With Early-Stage Alzheimer’s Disease: The Nutrition Intervention Study

2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (7) ◽  
pp. 782-807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryna Shatenstein ◽  
Marie-Jeanne Kergoat ◽  
Isabelle Reid
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Intervention Program ◽  
Dietary Intervention ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Intervention Group ◽  
Community Dwelling ◽  
Nutrition Intervention ◽  
Control Group

A 6-month dietary intervention program was designed for community-dwelling older adults with Alzheimer’s disease. Sixty-seven persons aged 70 years and above were recruited with their caregivers from six hospital memory and geriatric outpatient clinics, and allocated to intervention ( n = 34 dyads) or control group ( n = 33 dyads). Usual diet was assessed by a validated food frequency questionnaire and current diet by two nonconsecutive diet recalls or records corroborated by caregivers, at recruitment (T1) and exit from the study (T2). Intervention participants received targeted dietary recommendations; control participants received Canada’s Food Guide leaflets. The program was assessed using paired and independent t tests and nonparametric statistics. Fat intakes increased at T2 within intervention participants (54 ± 16 vs. 67 ± 23 g, p = .013), and there was a tendency for higher energy, protein, and calcium intakes at T2 within this group. Proportions with adequate protein intakes almost doubled from T1 to T2 in intervention group women ( p = .028) but decreased in female controls ( p = .030). Longer follow-up is necessary to determine persistence of benefits.

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