title: Which presidents are most memorable?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Episodic memory loss is a hall-mark of Alzheimer's disease (AD), with recall of recent events becoming progressively difficult. A commonly used tool, the recollection of US presidents, was assessed in evaluating episodic versus semantic memory loss among AD patients compared with spouse controls.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 36 patients (12 men, 24 women) with possible or probable AD were asked to "give the names of 5 US presidents" and concurrently administered the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Twenty-three spouses (12 men, 11 women) were controls. The year 1980 demarcated "remote" versus "recent" presidents.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients were older, had lower MMSE scores (P < .001), and recalled fewer presidents than controls (P < .005), after controlling for age. Among patients, men were more educated than women (P < .05) and recalled more presidents (P < .001). No gender differences were observed in controls.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Patients with AD preferentially recalled remote presidents, supporting retention of semantic memory in this group. There were no gender differences between groups.
authors.affiliation: The New York Memory and Healthy Aging Services, New York, New York, USA. gd@nymemory.org
authors.forename: Gayatri
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Devi
authors.forename: Emiliya
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Zhivotovskaya
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schultz
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000453:epidemiology; D005197:Famous Persons; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D011939:Mental Recall; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011057:Politics; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014481:United States