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Anosognosia for memory deficit in amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease
Author(s) -
Galeone Filomena,
Pappalardo Stella,
Chieffi Sergio,
Iavarone Alessandro,
Carlomagno Sergio
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
international journal of geriatric psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.28
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1166
pISSN - 0885-6230
DOI - 10.1002/gps.2583
Subject(s) - anosognosia , psychology , recall , memory impairment , metamemory , audiology , memory disorder , impaired memory , memory clinic , cognitive impairment , cognition , episodic memory , dementia , alzheimer's disease , cognitive psychology , disease , cognitive disorder , psychiatry , medicine , metacognition
Objective to investigate patterns of anosognosia for memory deficit in subjects with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods the study involved twenty‐five subjects with MCI, 15 with mild AD and 21 normal controls (NC). Subjective rating of memory functioning was assessed with a six‐items questionnaire that was administered before and after memory testing; an informant version from caregivers gave a discrepancy score (SRD). In the Objective Judgement (OJ) task, aiming to evaluate memory‐monitoring abilities, subjects were requested three times to predict their memory performance in recalling words from a list of ten. Then they had to recall the words. Prediction accuracy was computed by subtracting the predicted performance from the actual performance. Results MCI and AD showed reduced awareness of memory difficulties at the SRD and did not change their rating of these difficulties after memory testing. At the OJ task, MCI and AD consistently overestimated their memory performances as compared with NC. The SRD and OJ measures were not correlated with some patients being impaired on only one measure. Only the OJ measure was significantly related to executive functioning. Conclusions AD and MCI subjects show unawareness for memory deficit and significant memory‐monitoring disorder. This confirms that anosognosia is an important symptom of MCI. Similarities of patterns of impaired awareness between AD and MCI supports the view of a continuum of the anosognosia phenomenon in MCI and AD. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.