The Japanese journal of neuropsychology

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ArticleTitle	Optimizing study condition for mildly impaired Alzheimer's disease patients
Language	J
AuthorList	Masaru Mimura¹⁾, Shin-ichi Komatsu²⁾
Affiliation	1) Department of Neuropsychiatry, Showa University School of Medicine 2) Faculty of Education, Shinshu University
Publication	Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 20 (4), 233-240, 2004
Received
Accepted
Abstract	Background. An increasing evidence has suggested that patients with early-stage Alzhemier's disease or Mild Cognitive Impairment benefit from intervention with memory training. Previous studies have demonstrated superiority of errorless learning in cognitive training for patients with Alzheimer's disease. Based on a theoretical framework of memory rehabilitation, we further investigated what type of learning condition would be optimal for mildly impaired Alzhemier's disease patients. Method. Fourteen patients with very mild or mild stage Alzheimer's disease (Clinical Dementia Rating 0.5-1.0)(mean age=74.1 years old, mean MMSE=23.3) were asked to learn 8 target words under each of four study conditions that differed from one another in the dimensions of error and encoding; (1) Errorless/perceptual -the target was presented with gradually increasing fragment cues using perceptual identification technique, (2) Errorful/perceptual -the subject was asked to guess the target with an initial letter, (3) Errorless/conceptual -the subject was asked to generate the target with verbally given definition, (4) Errorful/conceptual -the subject was asked to generate the target corresponding to a given category. Free recall and recognition as well as perceptual identification were tested. Results. The errorless/conceptual condition (definition) led to significantly better free recall (4.14/8) than the other three conditions [errorless/perceptual (perceptual identification) 3.29/8, errorful/perceptual (generation with an initial letter) 2.21/8, errorful/conceptual (generation with a category) 3.07/8]. No differences were observed between each condition in the recognition test and priming effect in the perceptual identification test. Conclusions. Overall advantage of errorless learning was replicated in our sample of mild stage Alzheimer's disease. In addition, when errors were eliminated and controlled, the conceptual encoding condition which presumably works on residual explicit memory appeared to optimize learning of mild stage Alzheimer's disease.
Keywords	Alzheimer's disease, cognitive training, errorless learning, method of vanishing cues