Recent research has demonstrated that Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects the visual sensory pathways, producing a variety of visual deficits, including the capacity to perceive structure-from-motion (SFM). Because the sensory areas of the adult brain are known to retain a large degree of plasticity, the present study was conducted to explore whether…

The objective of this study was to investigate how a measure of educational and occupational attainment, a component of cognitive reserve, modifies the relationship between biomarkers of pathology and cognition in Alzheimer's disease. The biomarkers evaluated quantified neurodegeneration via atrophy on magnetic resonance images, neuronal injury…

Arithmetic skills are generally claimed to be preserved in semantic dementia (SD), suggesting functional independence of arithmetic knowledge from other aspects of semantic memory. However, in a recent case series analysis we showed that arithmetic performance in SD is not entirely normal. The finding of a direct association between severity of…

Background: Decreased speed of information processing is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Recent studies suggest that response speed (RS) measures are very sensitive indicators of changes in longitudinal follow-up studies. Insight into the psycho-physiological underpinnings of slowed RS can be provided by…

Psycholinguistic studies dealing with Alzheimer's disease (AD) commonly consider verbal aspects of language. In this article, we investigated both verbal and non-verbal aspects of speech production in AD. We used pauses and hesitations as markers of planning difficulties and hypothesized that AD patients show different patterns in the process of…

Purpose of the Study: To identify risk factors for early nursing home placement (NHP) in Alzheimer's disease (AD), focusing on the impact of longitudinal change in cognition, activities of daily living (ADL), service utilization, and cholinesterase inhibitor treatment (ChEI). Design and Methods: In an open, 3-year, prospective, multicenter study…

We tested the ability of Alzheimer's patients and elderly controls to name living and non-living nouns, and manner and instrument verbs. Patients' error patterns and relative performance with different categories showed evidence of graceful degradation for both nouns and verbs, with particular domain-specific impairments for living nouns and…

There is now a large body of evidence suggesting that color and photographic detail exert an effect on recognition of visually presented familiar objects. However, an unresolved issue is whether these factors act at the visual, the semantic or lexical level of the recognition process. In the present study, we investigated this issue by having…

Musical memory was tested in Alzheimer patients and in healthy older adults using long-term and short-term memory tasks. Long-term memory (LTM) was tested with a recognition procedure using unfamiliar melodies. Short-term memory (STM) was evaluated with same/different judgment tasks on short series of notes. Musical memory was compared to verbal…

This article offers a critical discussion of notions of self as they emerge in the diaries kept by Alzheimer patients and their caregivers. It explores ways in which diary writing becomes simultaneously an agentive way by which a sense of "self" gets scripted since memory is fast slipping away, while also pointing to the fluid nature of identities…

Purpose: The purpose of this feasibility pilot project was to observe Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients' responses to personalized multimedia biographies (MBs). We developed a procedure for using digital video technology to construct DVD-based MBs of persons with AD or MCI, documented their responses to…

We employed a triadic comparison task in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and healthy controls to contrast (a) multidimensional scaling (MDS) and accuracy-based assessments of semantic memory, and (b) degraded-store versus degraded-access accounts of semantic impairment in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Similar to other studies using triadic…

This study used the Remember/Know (R/K) procedure combined with signal detection analyses to assess recognition memory in 20 elders with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), 10 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) as well as matched healthy older adults. Signal detection analyses first indicated that aMCI and control participants…

Studies of word production in patients with Alzheimer's disease have identified the age of acquisition of words as an important predictor of retention or loss, with early acquired words remaining accessible for longer than later acquired words. If, as proposed by current theories, effects of age of acquisition reflect the involvement of semantic…

Purpose: This article explores primary care physicians' (PCPs) self-reported approaches and barriers to management of patients with dementia, with a focus on comparisons in dementia care practices between PCPs in 2 states. Design and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, questionnaires were mailed to 600 randomly selected licensed PCPs in…