title: Specific impairments of selective attention in mild Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: The aim of the present study was to evaluate selective visual attention in subjects affected by Alzheimer's Disease (AD), by means of a computerized spatial exploration test that adopts a Touch Screen (TS) interface, which has already proved able to characterize alternative strategies in performing search tasks. We assessed a group of 16 patients affected by mild to moderate AD, comparing them with 16 control subjects matched for age and education. In the experimental tasks the performance of the AD patients was worse than that of the normal elderly, both quantitatively (slower speeds) and qualitatively (poorer planning and higher number of omissions and perseverations). In the visual attention tasks there appeared to be no close connection between AD patients' performance and increased Reaction Times (RT); this evidenced a specific role of non-elementary cognitive structures enclosed in a higher attentional domain, rather than a general decrease in the speed of basic cognitive processes. Our results are in line with specific AD literature: while psychomotor speed and lower attention levels (sensorimotor) are preferentially impaired in subcortical forms of dementia, the higher levels of selective and divided attention could be the first to deteriorate and appear more markedly disrupted in the Alzheimer type of dementia.
authors.affiliation: Neurorehabilitation Unit, Università di Milano, Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi IRCCS, Milan, Italy. pignatti@virgilio.it
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pignatti
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rabuffetti
authors.forename: Emilia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Imbornone
authors.forename: Federica
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mantovani
authors.forename: Margherita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alberoni
authors.forename: Elisabetta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Farina
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Canal
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008609:Mental Status Schedule; D008875:Middle Aged; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric