Analysis of a conversation with an Alzheimer's disease sufferer with word-finding problems revealed that social context, speaker characteristics, and awareness of the other speaker's perspective governed such conversational aspects of turn taking and turn giving, which allowed full development of both speakers' personas. (23 references) (CB)

Purpose: This study was designed to examine the factors associated with the preferences of Alzheimer's disease patients to participate in a decision to use an Alzheimer's disease-slowing medication and how involved their caregivers would let them be in this decision. Design and Methods: Interviews were conducted with 48 patients in the…

The cognitive reserve hypothesis proposes that a high educational level could delay the clinical expression of Alzheimer's disease (AD) although neuropathologic changes develop in the brain. Therefore, some studies have reported that when the clinical signs of the disease emerge, high-educated patients may decline more rapidly than low-educated…

Reaction time (RT) tasks take various forms, and can assess psychomotor speed, (i.e., simple reaction time task), and focused attention (i.e., choice reaction time (CRT) task). If cues are provided before stimulus presentation (i.e., cued choice reaction time (CCRT) task), then a cueing effect can also be assessed. A limited number of studies have…

Purpose: The Early Diagnosis Dyadic Intervention (EDDI) program provides a structured, time-limited protocol of one-on-one and dyadic counseling for family caregivers and care receivers who are in the early stages of dementia. The goals and procedures of EDDI are based on previous research suggesting that dyads would benefit from an intervention…

It is estimated that 13 million to 15 million adults in the United States have chronic conditions that impair cognitive function, such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, Parkinson's disease, and traumatic brain injury. The growing number of people with chronic conditions that include cognitive impairment and the family members who assist them face…

In the present study, voice onset time (VOT) measurements were compared between a group of individuals with moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) and a group of healthy age- and gender-matched peers. Participants read a list of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words, which included the six stop consonants. The VOT measurements were made from…

Early differential diagnosis of dementia is becoming increasingly important as new pharmacologic therapies are developed, as these treatments are not equally effective for all types of dementia. Early detection and differential diagnosis also facilitates informed family decision making and timely access to appropriate services. Information about…

This document contains two brief bibliographies of peer-reviewed literature, with abstracts, on dementia and Alzheimer's disease in the elderly, one written for the educator and the other for the consumer. They are two of 12 bibliographies on aging prepared by the National Agricultural Library for its "Pathfinders" series of publications. Topics…

This study focused on one question: Do caregiver responses--emotion-focused coping, problem-focused coping, appraisal of burden, and appraisal of satisfaction--mediate or moderate the effects of caregiving stress on psychological well-being? Findings indicate that development of interventions that focus on how caregivers appraise their situation,…

Argues that social gerontologists have adopted biomedical model of senile dementia, neglecting social factors involved in definition and interpretation of brain disease and in experience of dementing illness. Critiques biomedical model, including definition of pathology, attribution of behavioral changes to disease stages, and legitimation of…

Studied 127 informal caregivers of Alzheimer's disease patients to determine correlates of 5 components of burden as measured by Cost of Care Index. Significant relationships between predictor variables and burden components suggest that global scores and measures of burden do not identify specific problem areas relative to various components of…

A study of 133 control subjects and 141 with senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT) was designed to determine if language, motor planning, and memory were discrete components of performance. It found that patterns were highly individualized, which suggests that apraxia contributes significantly to dysfunction in some people with SDAT. (JOW)

Used an existential theoretical framework to guide the data interpretation in a qualitative study of 94 family caregivers of dementia patients. Results suggest that an existential framework provides an alternative paradigm for understanding the caregiving experience. (ABL)

Individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) often have problems in recognizing common objects. This visual agnosia may stem from difficulties in establishing appropriate visual boundaries between visually similar objects. In support of this hypothesis, Saumier, Arguin, Chertkow, and Renfrew (2001) showed that AD subjects have difficulties in…