Memory process in demented and non-demented elderly patients

الملخص EN

Background : Dementia is characterized by progressive memory loss and other cognitive impairments.

Memory impairments are apparent on tasks that require learning and retention of verbal or non-verbal information.

Demented patients present severe impairments on recognition and recalling tasks.

They have severe deficits in transferring information in to a long-term storage system.

The present study investigated any difference between various memory processes in different reproduction phases contribute to discrimination between demented and non-demented elderly patients.

Methods : Thirty one demented and 25 non-demented elderly patients were selected according to inclusion criteria ; all of them were visited by a physician completing the Mini Mental Status Examination (MMSE) and California Verbal Learning Test-Persian version (CVLT-P).

Results : although demented and non-demented elderly subjects had no difference in relation to age and education, differences on clinical variables were significant and demented patients showed lower means than no demented ones.

A discriminate function analysis showed that CVLT-P had the ability to differentiate between demented and non-demented elderly patients and could correctly classify 94.3% of demented and non-demented older adults.

Conclusion : findings suggest that CVLT-P could discriminate satisfaction between these two groups and according to subscales, learning slope had the highest discrimination coefficient.

Sodemented patients had more deficits in hippocampus causing failure of learning.