Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry (생물정신의학)

The Korean Society of Biological Psychiatry (대한생물정신의학회)
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The Characteristics of Visuospatial Working Memory in Alzheimer's Disease

알츠하이머병에서의 시공간 작업기억 특성

  • Kim, Seol-Min (Department of Neuropsychiatry, Kyung Hee University School of Medicine) ;
  • Lee, Young-Ho (Department of Psychology, The Catholic University of Korea) ;
  • Youn, Jung-Hae (Department of Psychiatry, Seoul National University, College of Medicine) ;
  • Lee, Ju-Won (Department of Psychiatry, Seoul National University, College of Medicine) ;
  • Lee, Jun-Young (Department of Psychiatry, Seoul National University, College of Medicine)
  • 김설민 (경희대학교 의과대학 신경정신과학교실) ;
  • 이영호 (가톨릭대학교 심리학과) ;
  • 윤정혜 (서울대학교 의과대학 정신과학교실) ;
  • 이주원 (서울대학교 의과대학 정신과학교실) ;
  • 이준영 (서울대학교 의과대학 정신과학교실)
  • Published : 2009.11.30
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Abstract

Objectives : Mild Alzheimer's disease(AD) is uncertain to be related to visuospatial working memory subsystem dysfunction. We used the self ordered pointing test(SOPT) to find the characteristics of visuospatial working memory in mild AD. Methods : We compared the visuospatial working memory abilities of 20 patients with mild AD and 20 normal elderly controls(NC) using SOPT, of which stimuli consisted of two stimuli types(A : abstract, C : concrete) and two stimuli numbers(8 and 12). Therefore, working memory was tested using C8, C12, A8, and A12 stimuli conditions in SOPT. Mixed-model ANOVA was conducted with the AD and NC groups as between-subjects factor, with stimuli types and stimuli numbers as the within-subjects factors and with SOPT error rates as the dependent variable. Results : The AD group showed higher error rates in SOPT than the NC group. The NC group showed low error rates in concrete stimuli than in abstract stimuli and in small stimuli numbers than in large stimuli numbers. And the AD group showed no differences between stimuli types or stimuli numbers. Conclusion : AD patients showed a poor performance in visuospatial working memory using concrete stimuli. The result suggests that there is a non-transformation from visual input to phonological working memory in AD. Patients with AD showed a poor performance although in small stimuli number condition of SOPT. It suggests that in AD, visuospatial working memory is not working well although in low central executive loads.

Keywords

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