Which presidents are most memorable?
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.
Devi
Gayatri
G
The New York Memory and Healthy Aging Services, New York, New York, USA. gd@nymemory.org
Zhivotovskaya
Emiliya
E
Schultz
Sarah
S
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