Centre for Policy on Ageing



Impact of emotion on memory — controlled study of the influence of emotionally charged material on declarative memory in Alzheimer's disease
Author(s)	H Kazui, E Mori, M Hashimoto
Journal title	The British Journal of Psychiatry, vol 177, October 2000
Pages	pp 343-347
Keywords	Emotions ; Memory and Reminiscence ; Dementia ; Anxiety ; Earthquakes ; Evaluation ; Japan.
Annotation	An earlier study showed that a powerful emotional experience (the Kobe earthquake) reinforced memory retention in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), but factors other than the emotional impact of the earthquake could not be controlled. The previous findings were re-evaluated using recall tests consisting of two short stories administered to 34 patients with AD and 10 normal subjects. The two stories were identical except for one passage in each story - one was emotionally charged (arousing story) and the other (neutral story) was not. In both groups, the emotionally charged passage in the arousing story was remembered better than the counterpart in the neutral story. In addition, the extent of memory improvement was similar in both groups. The results provide further evidence that emotional arousal enhances declarative memory in patients with AD, and give a clue to the management of people with dementia. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-001025204 A
Classmark	DL: DB: EA: ENP: RG5: 4C: 7DT
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.