The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness
of autobiographical memories to support the improvement of
episodic memory (i.e., word recall) in patients with mild-
stage Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and healthy older adults.
Participants included 20 healthy young-old adults (M Age =
70.90; M MMSE = 28.70), 20 healthy old-old adults (M Age =
79.75; M MMSE = 28.05), and 15 patients with mild-stage AD
or mixed dementia (M Age = 74.73; M MMSE = 22.47).
Participants were presented with three lists of 30 words,
each administered under a different support condition: (1)
no cognitive support,(2) autobiographical memory support,
and (3) semantic support. In the autobiographical memory
support condition, participants associated each to-be-
remembered word with a personal memory that was then
shortened to a word cue for use in subsequent memory
testing. In the semantic support condition, participants
associated each to-be-remembered word with a one-word
descriptor. Memory was assessed with three recall conditions: immediate free recall, cued recall, and
recognition. It was expected that autobiographical
memory cues would be more effective than general semantic cues in improving number of words recalled in patients
with mild-stage AD and healthy older adults. The results indicated that healthy older adults and patients with mild-
stage AD benefited from both forms of cognitive support. Although the young-old group recalled more words in the
autobiographical than in the semantic support condition across the three recall conditions, the differences were
not significant. The old-old group recalled more words in the autobiographical than in the semantic support
condition on tests of immediate free recall. In contrast,
the mild AD group recalled more words in the
autobiographical than in the semantic support condition on
tests of cued recall and recognition. A limitation was the
ceiling effect for recognition performance in the young-
old and old-old group. Consistent with previous studies,
the results indicate that patients with mild-stage AD can benefit from cognitive support to improve episodic memory
if support is provided at encoding and retrieval. The results suggest that autobiographical memory cues may be
effective for improving everyday memory performance in
healthy older adults and patients with mild-stage AD. / Counselling Psychology
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:AEU.10048/552 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Cochrane, Karen |
| Contributors | Frender, Robert H. (Educational Psychology), Dixon, Roger A. (Psychology), Everall, Robin (Educational Psychology), Truscott, Derek (Educational Psychology), Small, Brent (University of South Florida), Scialfa, Charles (Univeristy of Calgary) |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 543550 bytes, application/pdf |
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