Abstract
To clarify the characteristics of memory impairment with dementia, we examined memory function using the auditory verbal learning test (AVLT). The subjects were 262 senile patients having amnesia as a complaint—including cases of 114 Alzheimer's disease (AD), 68 vascular dementia (VD), 6 dementia with Lewy body (DLB), 25 frontotemporal dementia (FTD), 49 mild cognitive impairment (MCI)—and 46 control subjects (CS). We discussed the scores of short-term memory (STM), total immediate memory (TIM), verbal learning ability (VLA), and retroactive interference effect (RI)in different types of dementia. In both STM and TIM, the scores of dementia were lower than those of MCI and CS, and the scores of MCI were lower than those of HS. In VLA, the scores of CS were higher than those of MCI and dementia, and the scores of AD were lower than those of MCI. There was significant difference in RI between CS and all types of dementia, between MCI and AD, and between AD and FTD. DLB scores on recognition were much lower compared with the scores of FTD, MCI and CS. These findings suggest that memory impairment with AD may owe to a mechanism different from that in patients with FTD. It is necessary for memory function to process encoding, storage and retrieval. Retrieval in MCI was preserved. Dementia impaired not only encoding and storage but also retrieval. We suggest that the AVLT is an efficient tool for distinguishing the process of memory impairment.
