Nonspecificity of semantic impairment in dementia of Alzheimer's type.
Two psychometric tests designed to evaluate "verbal fluency" and "naming" as a measure of semantic memory were presented to 18 patients with Alzheimer's-type dementia, 16 other patients with multi-infarct dementia, and 14 age-matched control subjects. The diagnosis of multi-infarct dementia and Alzheimer's-type dementia was based on the commonly accepted criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, ed 3. Although the patients with Alzheimer and multi-infarct dementias, respectively, suffered from a comparable degree of dementia (as determined by the Mini-Mental State examination), semantic memory was not specifically impaired in Alzheimer's-type dementia as opposed to multi-infarct dementia. In contrast semantic memory was correlated with the degree of dementia in both disease entities.
Fischer
P
P
Neurological Institute, Vienna School of Medicine, Austria.
Gatterer
G
G
Marterer
A
A
Danielczyk
W
W
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D000849:Anomia / Q000523:psychology; D001037:Aphasia / Q000523:psychology; D015161:Dementia, Multi-Infarct / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012660:Semantics; D014705:Verbal Behavior