Qualitative aspects of learning, recall, and recognition in dementia.
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether learning and serial position effect (SPE) differs qualitatively and quantitatively among different types of dementia and between dementia patients and controls; we also wished to find out whether interference affects it.


METHODS
We administered the Malayalam version of the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) to 30 cognitively unimpaired controls and 80 dementia patients [30 with Alzheimer's disease (AD), 30 with vascular dementia (VaD), and 20 with frontotemporal dementia (FTD)] with mild severity on the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale.


RESULTS
All groups were comparable on education and age, except the FTD group, who were younger. Qualitatively, the learning pattern and SPE (with primacy and recency being superior to intermediate) was retained in the AD, VaD, and control groups. On SPE in free recall, recency was superior to intermediate in the FTD group (P < 0.01 using Bonferroni correction). On recognition, the AD and VaD groups had more misses (P < 0.01), while the FTD group had more false positives (P < 0.01).


CONCLUSIONS
Quantitative learning is affected by dementia. The pattern of qualitative learning remains unaltered in dementia in the early stages.
Ranjith
Neelima
N
Cognition and Behavioral Neurology Section (CBNS), Department of Neurology, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), Trivandrum - 695020, Kerala, India.
Mathuranath
P S
PS
Sharma
Gangadhar
G
Alexander
Aley
A
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