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C Thomas-Antérion

Publications and source records attributed to C Thomas-Antérion.

18 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

[Ecologic evaluation in the cognitive assessment of brain injury patients: generation and execution of script].

OBJECTIVE: Assessment of executive functions in an everyday life activity, evaluating brain injury subjects with script generation and execution tasks. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We compared a script generation task to a script execution task, whereby subjects had to make a cooked dish. Two grids were used for the quotation, qualitative and quantitative, as well as the calculation of an anosognosis score. We checked whether the execution task was more sensitive to a dysexecutive disorder than the script generation task and compared the scores obtained in this evaluation with those from classical frontal tests. Twelve subjects with brain injury 6 years+/-4.79 ago and 12 healthy control subjects were tested. The subjects carried out a script generation task whereby they had to explain the necessary stages to make a chocolate cake. They also had to do a script execution task corresponding to the cake making. RESULTS: The 2 quotation grids were operational and complementary. The quantitative grid is more sensitive to a dysexecutive disorder. The brain injury subjects made more errors in the execution task. CONCLUSION: It is important to evaluate the executive functions of subjects with brain injury in everyday life tasks, not just in psychometric or script-generation tests. Indeed the ecological realization of a very simple task can reveal executive function difficulties such as the planning or the sequencing of actions, which are under-evaluated in laboratory tests.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

[Evaluation of memory for French public events: EVE-30 in 108 controls, 10 mild cognitively impaired and 10 Alzheimer's disease patients].

INTRODUCTION: Public events memory is a principal historic component of memory for the past. METHOD: We propose a new form of the French public events battery EVE which has been elaborated in 1994. EVE-30 uses 30 events dated between 1920 and 2004. Each event assesses recall, recognition, questions and dating. New exposure and flash souvenirs can be explored. One hundred and eight controls aged between 20 and 79 years, ten patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and ten patients with amnesic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) were evaluated. RESULTS: Mean percentage of good responses in controls group is good with a scale of 72p.cent. Performances were gradually observed. Recognition was respectively better than recall, than datation and than questions. Statistical analysis with ANOVA showed that an older age and a higher level of education significantly influenced results (p<0.05). MCI patients and MA patients exhibited more impaired performances than controls. MCI and MA patients had similar impairment in recognition and questions (very altered in the two groups). The French public events battery (EVE 30) can be performed in one hour and may be considered as a neuropsychological tool for the evaluation of memory for the historical past in clinical practice.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

[Assessment of disability and quality of life in patients with cognitive disorders].

OBJECTIVE: To identify disability, handicap and quality of life questionnaires available for patients with cognitive impairment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We systematically reviewed the literature in Medline using the keywords assessment, evaluation, deficiency, disability, disadvantage, handicap, quality of life, scale, index, questionnaire, ICIDH-1, and ICIDH-2, combined with the cognitive deficits dysexecutive syndrome, memory deficits, attention deficits, neglect, apraxia, aphasia, agnosia and mood disorders. We focused on validated scales and distinguished scales dedicated to assess disability, handicap and quality of life. RESULTS: At the level of disability, global and specific scales are available. Specific scales exist for dysexecutive syndrome, memory deficits, attention deficits, unilateral neglect, aphasia and mood disorders. French adaptations of foreign language tests and original tests developed in French have been validated in these areas. No specific tool is available for isolated apraxia or agnosia. Generic scales and pathology-specific scales (for stroke, traumatic brain injury, and multiple sclerosis) are available for quality of life. For aphasia, specific tools are available for incapacity handicap and quality of life. CONCLUSION: Previous results show the impact of the ICIDH-1 framework on functional outcome assessment of cognitive impairments. This approach is often limited by the lack of theoretical background and by the difficulty to assess the involvement of environment and anosognosia.

Cognition Disorders↗
PubMed2005

[Self-evaluation of physical, cognitive and mood symptoms in a cohort of traumatic and vascular brain injury patients participating in social and neuropsychological remediation programmes].

INTRODUCTION: We studied 23 vascular or traumatic head injury subjects, five years after their injury. METHODS: Neuropsychological testing included language tests, memory performance, frontal lobe tests and standard tests of intelligence (QI). Behavior was evaluated with the neuropsychiatric interview (NPI). Using an analogic visual scale, subjects performed a self-evaluation of their memory, language, attention, physical and thymic complaints. RESULTS: Neuropsychological assessment was heterogeneous but seemed to show severe impairment. Mean NPI score was 31.4: 91 percent of patients showed depression or anxiety and 78 percent of them showed irritability. Mean memory and thymic complaints were scored 6 on the analogic visual scale. Thymic complaint was not correlated with neuropsychological tests but with physical complaints. Thymic complaint was correlated with NPI score. Language complaint was correlated with VIQ, attentional complaint was correlated with PIQ, memory complaint with memory tests. In a second part, we studied 21 patients again 6 months later and 14 patients 1 year later. Mean complaints were scored over 5 after 6 months and over 4 after 1 year. With neuropsychological remediation and social activities, memory complaints improved significantly after 6 months and attentional and thymic complaints after 1 year. CONCLUSION: Using of analogical visual scales appears to be feasible: patients were able to evaluate their difficulties. This could be useful to elaborate remediation programs and evaluate outcome.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

[Multiple neurological complications in a case of anterior pituitary insufficiency].

Neurological manifestations of anterior pituitary deficiency are well known but their association remains rare. We report a woman who developed, insidiously over ten Years, a complex neurological disorder associating cognitive impairment, psychiatric disorder, cerebellar ataxia, demyelinating neuropathy, and myopathy with pseudomyotonia. After 18 Months of hormone substitution treatment, the patient fully recovered.

Female↗
PubMed2001

[Dissociation of retrograde memory impairment in a case of herpetic encephalitis].

OBJECTIVE: To report an uncommon case of memory impairment after meningoencephalitis. METHOD: Detailed description of the history, the lesions, the evolution and review of the bibliography. RESULTS: A 33 year-old man showed a loss of verbal anterograde memory and a dissociation of retrograde memory impairment after an herpetic meningo-encephalitis with lesions predominant in the left temporal lobe. The patient had impairment of verbal anterograde memory. Visual memory, procedural one were intact. He had normal performances in frontal tests. Neuropsychological assessment revealed major loss of episodic biographical memory and public events memory, but sparing of semantic biographical memory and professional knowledge. This patient who was amnesic but who had not difficulties with visual memory, procedural memory, frontal abilities and didactic memory conserved ability to work. CONCLUSION: This case report emphasize the multiplicity of the memory systems and the likely links between episodic biographical memory, semantic biographical memory, autobiographic episodic memory, public event memory and didactic memory.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Use of haplotype information to test involvement of the LRP gene in Alzheimer's disease in the French population.

The low density lipoprotein receptor-related protein gene (LRP) is a good candidate gene for Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Its protein is involved in the physiopathology of AD and has been found in senile plaques; on the other hand, LRP is located in 12q, a region in which genetic linkage to AD was reported. Two common polymorphisms, a tetranucleotide repeat in the 5' untranslated region and a single nucleotide polymorphism at position 766 in exon 3, were found to be associated with AD, but contradictory results were obtained in subsequent association studies. In the absence of clear hypotheses concerning the association of these polymorphisms with AD and their functional role, our objective was to test the association between AD and the two LRP polymorphisms in a large French case-control sample (274 Caucasian AD patients and 290 matched controls) using haplotype analysis. First, the separate study of each polymorphism showed no significant difference in genotype and allele frequencies between AD cases and controls. Second, strong linkage disequilibrium was found between alleles of the two polymorphisms in controls and in cases and the linkage disequilibrium between the 91 bp and C alleles were opposite in cases and in controls. Third, we found that the frequency of the 91-C haplotype was higher in cases than in controls, but the type I error was 0.061, slightly higher than the conventional one of 5%. The haplotype frequencies did not vary significantly as a function of age and APOE epsilon4 status. One interest in this study is the use of the haplotype analysis, which can be used to combine information from several polymorphisms, taking into account their dependence.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Midazolam effects on implicit and explicit memory processes in healthy subjects.

RATIONALE: Studying midazolam-induced amnesia offers an interesting approach to the organization of normal memory processes, since memory performance can be studied in the same subject in "on" and "off" drug conditions. OBJECTIVE: The present study investigated the effect of midazolam on skill learning. The task and the experimental design we used also allowed us to assess the effect of midazolam on priming and explicit memory. METHODS: Eighteen patients who underwent minor ear surgery and who were anaesthetized with intravenous midazolam, and 18 matched control subjects participated in a mirror reading task on 2 separate days. Patients were tested under midazolam on day 1 and without any medication on day 2. The mirror reading task was made of French words, some of which repeated across trial blocks, others being new. RESULTS: Patients under midazolam read new mirror written words faster with practice, which attested for intact skill learning. Moreover, they read repeated words faster than new words with practice, which was interpreted as reflecting intact priming abilities. These spared implicit memory capacities were observed along with severe explicit memory impairments. Learning for both new and repeated mirror written words on day 2 was similar in patients and in controls, which was interpreted as suggesting that the implicit learning that occurred on day 1 under midazolam was normal. CONCLUSIONS: The quality of skill learning, both in terms of speed of and lasting effect, was normal under midazolam in the task we used. In the context of the present task, midazolam offers an interesting, reversible model of amnesia.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Procedural learning in Parkinson's disease: intact and impaired cognitive components.

Two experiments were carried out to study procedural learning in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. In Experiment 1, ten patients and their normal controls participated in a classical mirror reading task and in an inverted reading task where word-stimuli made of non inverted letters had to be processed from right to left (e.g., ygoloruen). In both tasks, reading times for new stimuli were compared to reading times for stimuli that repeated over blocks. Although PD patients and their controls exhibited learning for repeated words in both tasks, PD patients did not respond faster with practice for new words in the inverted reading task. In Experiment 2, PD patients and their controls were presented with an original dot counting task in which participants were asked to process a horizontal series of black and white dots from right to left and to indicate whether a dot that had been designated by a number at the beginning of each trial was black or white. Results showed that PD patients, in contrast to controls, did not exhibit learning in this task. Results are discussed in terms of the cognitive components involved in these tasks. It is suggested that PD patients are impaired in the acquisition of a right-to-left visual scanning skill that could be studied directly in Experiment 2.

Case-Control Studies↗
PubMed1998

[Early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease].

The diagnosis of dementia of Alzheimer type (DTA) in the early stage of the disease may be possible with the development of specialized memory consultations. After this diagnosis, we can inform family and even the patient in some cases, monitor the progression of disease, give or not treatment, and help family for daily life management (money, car driving, administration papers, etc.). The first step is to analyse the memory complaints of the patient and if possible of his family. The difficulties in everyday life are more informative than an anxious complaint of memory and some IADL deficiency appear early: difficulty to use phone, drugs, transports or checks. The patient examination by a practitioner or a neurologist has to be complete, even if normal in most of the cases. The practitioner has to explore without specific material, the main cognitive domain: the "5 words test" illustrates a useful memory tool, analysing two types of recall. We also must observe writing, digit span, naming and verbal fluency. The examination by a psychologist using standardized batteries of tests must always be driven by this clinical exploration using common scales like MMS or ADAS. In very early DTA, we may observe a cognitive decline limited to some aspects of memory (free long term recall, cued recall, working memory...) with a decline of the most controlled attentional tasks. An isolated memory disorder has to be identified either as onset of DTA or as an aging related cognitive decline (ARCD): the difference is qualitative and may appear only on repeated exams by experimented psychologist.

Aged↗
PubMed1997

[Neurolupus with dementia manifestations. 2 cases].

Manifestations of dementia occurred in two young patients with disseminated lupus erythematosus who had no signs of focalized neurological deficit. In case 1 followed for 8 years, a probably autonomous and familial psychiatric syndrome was complicated during a lupus flare-up by a prolonged dementia syndrome which regressed to a large extent. In the second patient with moderate dementia and familial hearing loss, severe mental deterioration suddenly occurred with long-term degradation of the cognitive capacity. In both of these cases with neurolupus, the frontal clinical signs, the neuropsychological deficits evidenced at testing, and the lesions demonstrated at CT scan and magnetic resonance imaging favored a frontal and/or frontobasal type dementia. Treatment with cyclophosphamide was effective in case 1 after failure of corticosteroid therapy.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

[Specialized memory consultation and management of dementia syndrome].

The specialized memory consultation is based on two successive examinations: one by a neurologist, the other by a psychologist, using standardized batteries of tests. In 200 consecutive subjects with 63.8 years mean age, the authors observe dementia syndromes (39%), age related disorders of memory (6.5%), psychiatric disorders (28.5%), disorders after brain injury or neurosurgery (18.5%) and medical neurological pathologies (5.5%). Patients are addressed by practician in 34.5%. In the group of 78 patients with dementia syndrome were studied the delay before consultation, familial story, memory complaints of patients and family and diagnosis. In subjects with memory complaints a psychometric evaluation performed by a team of specialists seems to be a mean of refining the diagnosis and to improve a personalized management.

Aging↗
PubMed1994

[Aging and procedural memory. Study of a series of tests on microcomputers].

The authors have assessed perceptual motor tasks involving the learning of the mouse control by locking at a Macinthosh computer screen during three consecutive sessions. Tests were performed by 102 control subjects aged between 16 and 85 years. Concerning age, there was a significant time difference (ANOVA) but improvement was the same for all subjects. Educational level and IQP results didn't influence procedural performance. Men were faster in three tasks. We can argue that implicit learning abilities appear before explicit memory and within the adult life span there appears to be little significant deterioration in implicit memory abilitie.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

[Spelling impairments. Neuropsychological study in two adolescents with developmental dysgraphia].

Two adolescents 14 and 16 years of age presented with isolated developmental agraphia. The spelling errors were correlated with the degree of orthographic ambiguity and with the word frequency as in acquired agraphia. Patients used to simplify the words spelling and to follow the phoneme-grapheme conversion. The deficit is interpreted as a failure of a selective visual memory for irregular words, representing a developmental graphemic logogene impairment. The better performance of reading is interpreted in relation to phonological system integrity which could better supply the grapheme phoneme conversion of reading even for irregular words. The ambiguous and irregular words recognition during reading appeared easier than their spelling during writing. Short term and working memory for irregular words appeared normal; the deficit occurred only for the long term recall after 20 minutes. Learning of 20 irregular words was made possible in one case by selective reminding of the errors. In spite of normal MRI, a developmental disorder involving the angular gyrus is proposed as for acquired lexical agraphia in adults.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Differential mechanisms of impairment of remote memory in Alzheimer's and frontotemporal dementia.

This paper describes retrograde memory performances of 12 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and 12 frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients. First of all, we observed that FTD and AD patients did not differ for language tests (verbal fluency tests and oral denomination 80), for semantic memory tests, for logical memory test and Benton visual memory test and differed for anterograde verbal memory and frontal tests. Concerning retrograde memory, there was no difference between AD and FTD patients in retrograde memory scores (autobiographical memory interview, Crovitz's task, French public events interview battery) and both FTD and AD patients exhibited a retrieval deficit in their remote memory. We observed that the mechanisms of remote memory deficit was different in FTD and in AD patients. We observed no classical paradigm of Ribot for FTD patient's remote informations, and they appeared to have lost of access to memories and executive difficulties. In AD, the results indicated these patients' ability to learn new information and to search semantic memory failed.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Memory complaints and anxiety. Apropos of 40 patients attending a specialized memory consultation].

This study reports results of the specialized memory consultation based on 2 successive examinations, one by a neurologist, the other by a psychologist, of 40 anxious subjects with or without social phobias. Traumatic events were frequent and we observed Alzheimer's disease in the family of 41.9% of subjects. Anxious subjects obtained a high score in Mac Nair questionnaire [44.05 (16,49)]. Their principal complaints were attentional difficulties. They obtained normal but low performances for free recall of 10 pictures, logical memory (QM), and inverse span. Mac Nair score was only correlated with logical memory score. Standardized psychometric evaluation showed short-term memory difficulties. Attention seems to be unstable and anxious individuals have relatively limited attentional resources. They are preoccupied by their anxiety and thus have less ability to focus on tasks.

Adult↗