The relationship of mental status and estrogen use on visual -motor and visual -spatial abilities in elderly women.
Item
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Title
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The relationship of mental status and estrogen use on visual -motor and visual -spatial abilities in elderly women.
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Identifier
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AAI9986387
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identifier
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9986387
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Creator
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Weber, Christine Pezzanite.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Victoria Luine
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Date
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2000
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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, Psychobiology | Psychology, Physiological | Psychology, Cognitive
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Abstract
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The goal of this dissertation was to examine hand-eye movement deficits that manifest (visual-motor integration) in elderly individuals. Performance on visual-spatial tasks have been shown to involve parietal lobe function. Experiments investigated the relationship between cognitive status and visual motor performance tasks. A secondary study investigated the effects of estrogen replacement on visual-spatial abilities. In the primary study of 50 elderly women, participants were given a test of mental status and asked to perform a constructional ability task and a three-dimensional object placement task. They were compared on the basis of mental status scores, which were categorized into two groups: cognitively impaired versus cognitively normal. Age and education of each group was analyzed. Data demonstrated that woman who showed deficits on a test of mental status had difficulty performing tests of constructional ability and three-dimensional object placement as compared to normal elderly women (p < .01). The results suggest that tests which assess an individual's ability to reach and grasp for objects are an indicator of visual-spatial deficits in elderly individuals and may provide an additional indicator of cognitive loss.;For the secondary study, women with a history of estrogen use were compared to women with no history of estrogen use to determine whether significant differences for visual-spatial abilities were present. Women were given tests of visual-spatial abilities (the Rosen Drawing test and the Benton Visual Retention Test). Analysis of the data demonstrated no significant differences for women with a prior history of estrogen use on tests of visual-spatial abilities compared to women with no history of estrogen use. The findings although not significant, show a trend between estrogen use and visual-spatial abilities, suggesting that further research would be useful in addressing this question.
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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.
