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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Alzheimer's disease, depression and normal ageing
— merit of simple psychomotor and visuospatial tasks | | Author(s) | Marc Hofman, Erich Seifritz, Kurt Kräuchi |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 15, no 1, January 2000 |
| Pages | pp 31-39 |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Depression ; Mental ageing ; Cognitive processes ; Evaluation ; Germany. |
| Annotation | A brief psychometric test battery was used to differentiate Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients from patients with depression and healthy age-matched control subjects in this German study. Subjects were 30 patients with probable AD (mild to moderate), 22 patients with a major depression, and 15 healthy subjects. Discrimination reaction time separated the three groups most distinctly, but general level of cognitive functioning was a significantly confounding variable. There were no differences between the AD and the depressed patients when the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) was used as a covariate. Substantial deficiencies in manumotoric co-ordination were found in both demented and depressed patients. The visual pattern-matching task yielded longer reaction times in both patient groups than in the control group. The data suggest deficiencies in basic central operations, a slowing of central information processing and attentional deficits in AD and depressed patients. Psychomotor tasks were able to distinguish effectively healthy older people from AD and depressed patients. This test battery, however, appears to be limited in differentiating AD from depression. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-000419005 A |
| Classmark | EA: ENR: D6: DA: 4C: 767 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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