Key question: Dementia

Question 1

What is the cognitive key question?

Answer 1

How can psychologists understanding of memory help patients with dementia.

Question 2

Why is dementia and issue?

Answer 2

-Effects 850,000 people in the UK and 1 in 6 people over 80 have dementia.
-Has no current treatment.
-WE can use our knowledge to improve their quality of life.
-Many patients are treated by the NHS which costs a lot of money.

Question 3

What is dementia?

Answer 3

-A problem with processing info and memory.
-Causes a decline in a persons ability to think, understand and remember.
-Effects a persons function.
-All types are progressive.

Question 4

What are 3 symptoms of early stage alzhimers?

Answer 4

-Forgetfulness.
-Trouble multi-tasking
-Personality changes

Question 5

What are 3 symptoms of middle stage dementia?

Answer 5

-Disorientation.
-Wandering.
-Alters in sleeping and appetite.

Question 6

What are 3 symptoms of late stage dementia?

Answer 6

no short term memory, loss of speech and forgetting family members.

Question 7

What are some variations of dementia?

Answer 7

-Alzheimer’s.
-Vascular dementia.
-Lewy body dementia.

Question 7

What are the 4 A’s of Alzheimer’s and what do they mean?

Answer 7

-Agnosia- inability to recognise or interpret visual information.
-Anomia- inability to find the right word, name or express and idea.
-Aphasia- difficulty understanding or expressing and following instruction.
-Apraxia- difficulty translating thoughts to actions.

Question 8

On a brain scan what does dementia do to the brain?

Answer 8

-Brain becomes smaller.
-Neurons and pathways are destroyed.
-plaques build up between the nerves.
-Dead and dying cells stay in the brain.

Question 9

How does the multi-store model explain demetia?

Answer 9

-Short term memory is effected by dementia.
-Info is forgotten as it is not encoded into the STM.
-Retrieval is effected so more likely to forget.

Question 10

How can the multi-store model explanation say we can help dementia patients.

Answer 10

-Using pictures and colour (visual things) so it can be encoded in the STM.
-Use specific questions to help.
-Write things down to help LTM.

Question 11

How can the working memory model explain demetia?

Answer 11

-Central executive is not working and is damaged over time.
-Explains why patients have issues with attention and multi-tasking.

Question 12

How does the working model explanation help us treat dementia patients?

Answer 12

-Only give them one task at a time to focus attention and avoid multi tasking.

Question 13

How does schema theory help explain dementia?

Answer 13

-Schemas can be mixed up and cause confusion so they are less able to make sense of a situation.

Question 14

How does schema theory say we can help dementia patients?

Answer 14

-Ask simple, direct questions so they are not confused.
-Follow along with their train of thought to not confuse them more.

Question 15

How does Tulving’s theory explain dementia?

Answer 15

-Episodic memory fades before semantic memory.
-Episodic memories are lost in a reverse chronological order (most present memories go first).

Question 16

How does Tulving’s theory say we can help dementia patients?

Answer 16

-Go along with their beliefs and don’t try to correct them as reminding them could be distressing.

Question 17

What was Rusted( 2000) study and does it support or conflict schemas theory explaination of dementia?

Answer 17

-People with dementia use schemas to support memories and pre-established schemas stay well intact.
-Conflicts explanation as schemas get worse in dementia and muddled up.

Question 18

What was Son (2002) study and does it support or conflict Tulving’s explanation of dementia?

Answer 18

-Remote memories are more resilient than recent ones so people with dementia have difficulty interpretating new things.
-Supports as more present memories are lost before past.

Question 19

What was Baddeley (2001) study and does it support or conflict the working model of memory explanation of dementia?

Answer 19

-Conducted attentional tests on people with Alzheimer’s and controls, including distraction tasks. Alzhimers found it harder to switch attention.
-Supports as if the central executive is damaged they will have more difficulty controlling attention.

Question 20

What was Morris (2007) study and does it support or conflict the multi-store explanation of dementia?

Answer 20

-Tested patients ability to remember trigrams with 0.5 to ten seconds break where they were asked to do nothing or stay the trigrams repeatedly. People with dementia have insufficient resources available for maintenance rehearsal
-Supports as info is not encoded into the STM and they are unable to do maintenance rehearsal.