week 9 - long term memory - dementia

Question 1

dementia
- what does it describe

Answer 1

a general loss of function

Question 2

dementia
- characteristics

Answer 2

progressive
irreversible
results in death
memory loss and effects on language functioning are hallmarks

Question 3

dementia
- causes

Answer 3

neurological disorder
caused by progressive cell death

Question 4

dementia
- syndrome characterized by

Answer 4

memory impairment and at least one of the following
- aphasia -> language impairments
- apraxia -> motor memory impairments
- agnoisa -> sensory memory impairments
- abstrast thinking / executive function impairmemts
impairments in social behaviour
not explainable by another disorder (depression)

Question 5

degenerative dementias

Answer 5

are presumed to have a degree of a genetic cause
- cortical and subcortical dementias
Alzheimers (cortical most common 65% of diagnoses)
Parkinsons (subcortial - dopaminergic loss)
frontal temporal dementia

Question 6

nondegenerative dementia

Answer 6

are a heterogeneous group of disorders with diverse origin
chronic alcohol or drug abuse

Question 7

alzheimer’s disease
- progressive stages of alzheimers disease
early

Answer 7

needs reminders
daily routines difficult
concentration is difficult
loss of recent memories

Question 8

alzheimer’s disease
- progressive stages of alzheimers disease
middle

Answer 8

may need hands on care
may get lost easily
changes in personality

Question 9

alzheimer’s disease
- progressive stages of alzheimers disease
late

Answer 9

severe confusion
needs help for personal care
may not recognize self or family

Question 10

memory impairments

Answer 10

difficulty learning or retaining new information (repeated converstations)
information retrieval deficits (cant recall names)
personal episodic memory impairment (misplacing items)
declarative (semantic) memory (WHAT) more than procedural (implicit) memory (HOW)

Question 11

language deficits

Answer 11

list generational deficits (esp, in AD)
word finding difficulties (naming problems)
verbal fluency deficits
less complex sentence structure
relatively preserved auditory comprehension

Question 12

visuospatial impaiements

Answer 12

visual recognition impairments
- trouble recognising familiar faces

spatial deficits
- getting lost in familiar surroundings

Question 13

executive function impairments

Answer 13

planning, predicting, correlating, abstracting
often the first impairment noticed in highly educated/intelligent people
(because difficult to compensate for)

Question 14

Alzheimer’s disease
- anatomical correlates
cortical degeneration

Answer 14

the entorhinal cortex (link between neocortex and hippocampus) shows the clearest evidence for cell loss, which may explain why memory problems occur early in teh disease
affected areas are the limbic cortex, inferior temporal cortex, and posterior parietal cortex
the primary sensory and motor areas are spared

Question 15

demographics of aging

Answer 15

today almost 1 in 10 people are over 60 years old
by 2050 1 in 5 people will be over 60
cognitive impairments such as dementia will become more common

Our population demographics are changing
More older people
So dementia more common

Question 16

dementia and language
- research?

Answer 16

Research has been carried out on Iris Murdoch (1919–1999), the renowned Irish novelist who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Question 17

dementia and language
- research?
what did they do

Answer 17

Garrard et al. (2005) compared her first published work, a novel written during her prime, and her final novel.

Her work became less sophisticated

Subsequent research by Pakhomov et al. (2011) showed the syntactic complexity of Iris Murdoch’s writing decreased over time.

Question 18

dementia and language
- research
sign of impairment?

Answer 18

Signs of impairment before diagnosis - Le et al. (2011)

(Le et al. (2011) carried out a detailed longitudinal analysis of the writings of Iris Murdoch, Agatha Christie (suspected of having Alzheimer’s disease towards the end of her life) and P.D. James (anovelist with no signs of cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease). )

showed a sharp decrease in vocabulary size, increased repetition of phrases, and irrelevant filler words or phrases.

Question 19

dementia and language
- research
comparison of writings

Answer 19

Van Velzen et al. (2014) reported a detailed comparison of the writings of Iris Murdoch and Agatha Christie focusing on their lexical diversity (richness of vocabulary).

Murdoch much more sudden and extreme drop

concluded Agatha Christie did not have Alzheimer’s disease but rather some other neurodegenerative condition.

P.D. James showed only marginal writing impairments in old age due to normal ageing.