[The verbal priming effect in Alzheimer's disease]  .
BACKGROUND
"Word-stem completion paradigm" has been used in many experimental and clinical studies to evaluate the verbal priming effect inpatients with dementia. Different studies using this tests with Alzheimer disease (AD) patients produced contradictory findings.


OBJECTIVE
To study the effect of latency in the presentation of stimuli in the word-stem completion paradigm in words self-generated by patients with AD and to compare these results with those of a healthy control group.


METHODS
The sample consisted of 30 AD patients (DSM-IV y NINCDS-ADRA criteria) and 30 healthy control subjects (CS). Two stimulus generation conditions were applied: without latency (NL) and with five minutes latency (5'L).


RESULTS
The verbal priming effect in the NL conditions was maintained in both groups, whilst in the condition 5'L a reduction was observed in the AD patient group.


CONCLUSIONS
A 5'L and self generation of stimuli are two factors of clinical interest in the study of the verbal priming effect in AD.
Cacho Gutiérrez
J
J
Sección de Neurología, Hospital Clínico de Neurología, P. de San Vicente, 58-182, 37007 Salamanca. jcachog@meditex.es
García García
R
R
Fernández Calvo
B
B
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D014706:Verbal Learning