Open AccessAFFECTIVE THEORY OF MIND IN PEOPLE WITH ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE
Author(s) -
Aline De Lucena,
Paulo F. Santos,
Márcia Cristiscimento Dourado
Publication year - 2021
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Conference proceedings
DOI - 10.5327/1980-5764.rpda052
Subject(s) - sadness , anger , psychology , happiness , surprise , cognition , dementia , association (psychology) , alzheimer's disease , affect (linguistics) , emotion classification , clinical psychology , verbal fluency test , disease , cognitive psychology , psychiatry , neuropsychology , medicine , psychotherapist , social psychology , communication , pathology
Background: In recent years, interest has been growing in cognitive and affective ToM functioning in individuals suffering from neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, the affective ToM has been less investigated. Objective: This study aims to compare affective ToM performance in persons with mild to moderate AD and healthy older controls (HOC), and its relationship with cognition. Methods: A cross-sectional study of 97 mild to moderate AD individuals and 40 HOC. To assess affective ToM, participants were administered a task that examines ability to comprehend the emotional situation nature along with the appropriate emotional state that one would experience in that situation. Assessments of cognition, dementia severity, functionality, awareness of disease and neuropsychiatric symptoms were completed for AD group. Results: Analyses of emotional reasoning indicated a group effect on performance. There was a significant difference between the AD and HOC groups in terms of their ability to understand situations of sadness, surprise, anger, and happiness, with the moderate AD showing the worst performance for all emotional situations. Ability to appropriately name the emotional state was significantly different for surprise, anger, and happiness, but not for sadness, with both AD groups showing lower performance for surprise and anger, and with the mild AD showing better performance for happiness. In both AD groups, ability to understand the emotional situation and to name the emotion was significantly correlated with cognitive impairment and awareness of disease. Neuropsychiatric symptoms were significantly correlated in moderate AD group. Conclusions: Impairment in understanding the emotional aspects of situations can lead moderate AD people to experience conflicts in family and social situations. Mild AD people can experience same conflicts when their preserved ability in understanding the emotional situation is underestimated.