Memory deficits and psychomotor slowing in AIDS dementia complex patients.
Item
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Title
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Memory deficits and psychomotor slowing in AIDS dementia complex patients.
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Identifier
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AAI9732976
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identifier
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9732976
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Creator
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Steinman, Ruth Elise.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Martin Chodorow
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Cognitive | Psychology, Clinical | Psychology, Experimental
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Abstract
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Experiments were performed to determine the extent of psychomotor slowing and memory deficits indicative of a dementing process. The groups compared were 10 patients diagnosed with probable AIDS Dementia Complex (ADC) and 10 undergraduates, who served as controls. Three reaction time tasks were used--simple, choice, and complex (Sternberg's short-term memory scanning). Explicit and implicit memory tasks were also examined to look for differences between the two groups. These included recall, stem completion (priming), and recognition. Results for the simple and choice RT tasks indicated a significant effect of task but not of group, although there was a trend in the direction of longer times for the ADC patients. Notably, there was no interaction between task and group. The memory scanning results showed a significantly higher Y-intercept for the ADC patients, which was interpreted as psychomotor slowing, and a steeper slope for the YES trials, which indicated dementia. Materials for the explicit and implicit memory tasks consisted of seven-word lists of abstract and concrete nouns presented auditorily and visually. A measure of free recall showed a main effect for group (ADC recall was lower than Control), as well as for Concreteness, Modality, and Position, but there were no interactions between group and the other variables. For the recognition measure, another explicit memory task, there were no significant main effects or interactions, indicating a relative sparing of encoding in the ADC group. Combined with the recall results, the pattern suggests that the deficit is primarily in retrieval, rather than encoding. The ADC patients showed significantly less priming in the stem completion task compared to the Controls. This result contrasts with those reported in the literature for Korsakoff's, amnesics, and depressives. The set of tasks used here and the materials specifically designed for this study proved to be valuable in the determination of dementia and should therefore be included in a battery to test mental status, especially when testing time is limited.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
