Alexandra Economou | PubMed Health

PubMed2006

Working-delayed memory difference detects mild cognitive impairment without being affected by age and education.

Performance on neuropsychological tests is affected by age and education, which makes the early detection of cognitive impairment difficult when assessing individuals of varying levels of education. We examined the effects of age, education, and gender on three memory indexes of the Wechsler Memory Scale-III, Delayed Memory, Working Memory and the difference between Working-Delayed Memory in a sample of patients with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment, patients with mild probable Alzheimer's disease, and a nondemented elderly comparison group. Whereas Delayed and Working Memory scores were affected by participant type, age, and education, the Working-Delayed Memory difference score was affected by participant type, only. Our preliminary conclusions, pending replication of the findings with a larger sample, are that working-delayed memory difference was sensitive to early memory decline without being affected by age and education.

Aged↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Olfactory identification in elderly Greek people in relation to memory and attention measures.

The University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) and the Cross-Cultural Smell Identification Test (CC-SIT) were administered to nondemented Greek participants ranging in age from 49 to 88 years together with tests of verbal memory from the Wechsler Memory Scale-3rd Edition (WMS-III). The test scores of the sample administered the CC-SIT were compared with the test scores of the 12 analogous UPSIT items of the sample administered the UPSIT. The percent of individuals correctly identifying each of the odorants of the UPSIT and CC-SIT is reported, together with means and standard deviations (S.D.) of the total smell scores. UPSIT performance in both the full test and the 12 analogous items was associated with WMS-III Logical Memory I performance after accounting for the effects of age, education and gender. CC-SIT performance was associated with gender, score on the Beck Depression Inventory-II and Logical Memory I performance. The study shows that olfactory identification is associated with verbal memory in nondemented individuals after accounting for demographic variables.

Aged↗