Individuals with Alzheimer Disease (AD) exhibit deficits across multiple cognitive domains years before clinical diagnosis, when they are in the preclinical stages of the disease. Four studies were conducted to (a) examine the preclinical neuropsychological characteristics of English- and French-speaking Alzheimer Disease (AD) participants from the Canadian Study of Health and Aging (CSHA) and (b) determine the utility of select CSHA neuropsychological and demographic measures in predicting AD over a five-year period. Both English- and French-speaking AD participants demonstrated cognitive changes on episodic memory, verbal fluency, and speeded visuomotor processing tasks five years prior to diagnosis, however declines in performance between initial- and re-assessment were not uniform across these domains for either language group. Advanced age and declines in delayed episodic memory were the most significant indicators of progression to AD over a five-year period for both language groups. A validation study was conducted to investigate how well the predictors of AD prognosticate diagnostic outcome for an independent group of at-risk English-speaking participants. The best predictors of AD for the English-speaking group (age, episodic memory, and speeded visuomotor processing) accurately classified close to 70% of individuals from the at-risk sample. The present findings will contribute to diagnostic decisions regarding AD in older English- and French-speaking Canadian adults.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-11142006-123511 |
| Date | 16 November 2006 |
| Creators | Moorthy, Thamarai |
| Contributors | Hillis, Sarah, D'Arcy, Carl, Marche, Tammy, Crossley, Margaret |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-11142006-123511/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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