[Spaced-retrieval in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Critical review and clinical applications]

Abstract

Memory deficit is the most common and invalidating cognitive impairment in subjects with Alzheimer's disease (AD). So far, pharmacological treatment shows little efficacy on the memory deficits. Recent studies have shown that specific cognitive remediation techniques can help compensating for memory deficits in AD dementia, even in advanced stages. Spaced retrieval is a technique based on recalling information over progressively longer intervals of time. It helps the patients with dementia learning and memorizing new information and is particularly suited for activities of daily life improvement. This paper first review the efficacy of this method in different types of dementia and more specifically in Alzheimer's disease; second, the cognitive mechanisms underlying spaced retrieval and the cognitive and clinical factors determining its efficacy are presented. Then the advantages and feasibility of the spaced retrieval technique in common clinical practice are discussed, and specific recommendations are given.