Recognition memory for words and faces in primary degenerative dementia of the Alzheimer type and normal old age

Abstract

The suitability of Warrington's Recognition Memory Test (RMT) for discriminating between patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type and nondemented elderly subjects was tested in a study with 44 patients (aged 59 to 94) and 45 normal elderly (aged 69 to 92). The patients showed a significant memory deficit, both in Recognition Memory for Words (RMW) and Recognition Memory for Faces (RMF), even when the scores were corrected for verbal intelligence score (WAIS Vocabulary) or a measure of visuoperceptual ability (Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices, CPM). Word-face discrepancy scores did not differentiate between dementia and normal old age. At the 95%-specificity level, the sensitivity of RMW and RMF for the detection of memory impairment in dementia was 81% and 100% for subjects below 80, and, less satisfactory, 59% and 76% for subjects of 80 years or older. Correlational analysis showed that the patients' RMW and RMF scores were moderately correlated (r = .40). The significant correlation (r = .45) between CPM and RMF suggests that visuoperceptual deficits are involved in deficient face recognition.