title: Personality changes in patients with beginning Alzheimer disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate personality traits in patients with Alzheimer disease, compared with mentally healthy control subjects. We compared both current personality characteristics using structured interviews as well as current and previous personality traits as assessed by proxies.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifty-four patients with mild Alzheimer disease and 64 control subjects described their personality traits using the Structured Interview for the Five-Factor Model. Family members filled in the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, Form R, to evaluate their proxies' current personality traits, compared with 5 years before the estimated beginning of Alzheimer disease or 5 years before the control subjects.
  
  
  RESULTS
  After controlling for age, the Alzheimer disease group presented significantly higher scores than normal control subjects on current neuroticism, and significantly lower scores on current extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness, while no significant difference was observed on agreeableness. A similar profile, though less accentuated, was observed when considering personality traits as the patients' proxies remembered them. Diachronic personality assessment showed again significant differences between the 2 groups for the same 4 domains, with important personality changes only for the Alzheimer disease group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Group comparison and retrospective personality evaluation are convergent. Significant personality changes follow a specific trend in patients with Alzheimer disease and contrast with the stability generally observed in mentally healthy people in their personality profile throughout their lives. Whether or not the personality assessment 5 years before the current status corresponds to an early sign of Alzheimer disease or real premorbid personality differences in people who later develop Alzheimer disease requires longitudinal studies.
authors.affiliation: Service of Old Age Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Cornelia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pocnet
authors.forename: Jérôme
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rossier
authors.forename: Jean-Philippe
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Antonietti
authors.forename: Armin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: von Gunten
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology; D018450:Disease Progression; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D010555:Personality Inventory; D012647:Self-Assessment; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013997:Time Factors