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Biomedical subjects

H Spinnler

Publications and source records attributed to H Spinnler.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Who is who: Italian norms for visual recognition and identification of celebrities.

Age-, education- and sex-adjusted norms are provided for two new neuropsychological tests, namely (i) Face Recognition (guess of familiarity) and (ii) Person Identification (biographical contextualisation). Sixty-three pictures of celebrities and 63 of unknown people were selected following two interwoven criteria(1): the realm of their celebrity (i.e., entertainment, culture and politics) and the period of celebrity acquisition (i.e., pre-war, post-war and contemporary). Both media- and education-dependent knowledge of celebrity were considered. Ninety-eight unpaid healthy participants aged between 50 and 93 years and with at least 8 years of formal education took part in this study. Reference is made to serial models of familiar face/persons processing. Recognition is held to tackle the activity of Personal Identity Nodes (PINs) and identification of the Exemplar Semantics Archives. Given the seriality of the reference model, the Identification Test is embedded in the Recognition test. This entailed that only previously recognised faces were employed to achieve norms for identification.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2005

Temporal gradients for media-mediated memory: Italian norms.

Temporal gradient (TG), i.e., differential recall of recent and old memories, is a well known feature of amnesia. A recent study provided evidence of a classical TG for media-mediated events in elderly healthy people, showing that they recall remote events significantly better than recent ones, while a reverse TG, i.e., better recall of more recent events, was demonstrated in younger normal subjects. In the present study we present normative data which, using the same test, allow evaluation of TG in single cases and their qualification as classical or reverse. The normative procedure was also applied to a small sample of subjects with probable Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment. Norms for TG may be helpful not only to assess healthy people's performance, but also to judge any apparent TG in pathological subjects.

Aged↗
PubMed2004

Cognitive deterioration in Alzheimer's disease: is the early course predictive of the later stages?

This study investigated the predictive value of the early progression rate of Alzheimer's disease on that of the later stages. We retrospectively evaluated 91 patients affected by possible Alzheimer's disease; the patients had been examined twice with the Milan overall dementia assessment (MODA) scale at an interval of 12 months (53 patients) or 24 months (38 patients). At the first assessment, speed of progression was calculated for each patient dividing the MODA difference from the normality threshold by the time elapsed from the cognitive decline onset. The second assessment of speed of progression was calculated dividing the difference between the two MODA scores by the time elapsed from the first examination. Patients with a slow progression rate in the early stage were unlikely to show a subsequent fast progression rate, and vice versa for patients with a fast early progression. A tool is provided for predicting the speed of cognitive decline of patients from a single MODA assessment. We suggest that, in future clinical trials on Alzheimer's disease, a stratification of participants based on the early rate of cognitive deterioration may be considered.

Age of Onset↗
PubMed2004

"What do you remember about Chernobyl?" A new test of memory for media-mediated events.

We devised a new test for assessing remote memory for media-mediated events, i.e. events that are reported by and known through the media. The test consists of a verbal questionnaire covering famous events that occurred over a long period of time, from 1976 to 2000, specifically designed for use with the Italian population. A free recall procedure was adopted which makes use of progressive cues. The test can be easily updated for inclusion of future events. Normative and test-retest reliability data are presented. The test provides a new tool for assessing media-mediated memory whenever an extensive assessment of retrograde memory performance is required, both in normal people and in brain-damaged patients.

Aged↗
PubMed2004

Walking difficulties in patients with Alzheimer's disease might originate from gait apraxia.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether gait apraxia is a possible cause for some of the walking abnormalities shown by patients with Alzheimer's disease. METHODS: 60 patients with Alzheimer's disease, selected as being free from overt extrapyramidal impairment or other potential causes of walking deficits, were assessed with a new test evaluating aspects of walking and related movements. Norms for this test were collected from a sample of 182 healthy volunteers. RESULTS: 40% of the Alzheimer group performed below the cut off score on this test, and half performed poorly. Performance of the Alzheimer group in the walking skills test correlated highly with scores in a test assessing limb apraxia and with dementia severity. CONCLUSIONS: Gait apraxia may be the cause of walking disorders found in a subgroup of patients with Alzheimer's disease. Its detection is made easier by the use of a standardised test, but still relies heavily on the exclusion of other causes of walking deficits. It is a recognisable and independent form of apraxia.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Dual task effects of walking when talking in Alzheimer's disease.

Previous studies with Alzheimer Disease (AD) patients have suggested that speed and accuracy in walking can be dramatically affected by a simultaneous secondary cognitive task, such as holding a conversation. Two experiments examined the impact on AD patients and age matched elderly controls of cognitive demands while walking. In Experiment 1 walking for AD patients was more affected than it was for the normal elderly by a concurrent cognitive demand. Experiment 2 demonstrated that both groups were equally impaired under dual task conditions when the demands of the cognitive tasks were adjusted for individual levels of ability. We conclude that walking may draw on general executive resources, that walking relies more heavily on these executive resources in the elderly, and on a damaged executive system for AD patients.

Aged↗
PubMed2003

How to calculate an MMSE score from a MODA score (and vice versa) in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

The aim of the present study was to provide a statistically sound way of reciprocally converting scores of the mini-mental state examination (MMSE) and the Milan overall dementia assessment (MODA). A consecutive series of 182 patients with "probable" Alzheimer's disease patients was examined with both tests. MODA and MMSE scores proved to be highly correlated. A formula for converting MODA and MMSE scores was generated.

Aged↗
PubMed2003

How many camels are there in Italy? Cognitive estimates standardised on the Italian population.

OBJECTIVE: We provided the standardisation of a new Cognitive Estimation Task (CET). PARTICIPANTS: the test was administered to 175 healthy subjects. RESULTS: performance on the Cognitive Estimation Task (CET) is associated with gender (where women show poorer performance than men) and education (where more highly educated individuals show better performance compared to individuals with lower levels of education). However,CET performance is not associated with age. DISCUSSION: the lack of age effects on the CET may be explained by the task dependence on "crystallised intelligence", which is less affected by healthy adult ageing than "fluid intelligence".

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

General Knowledge of the World: a standardised assessment.

An entirely verbal enquiry of "General Knowledge of the World" made up by 168 questions exploring 14 domains of knowledge (12 questions each) has been standardised on 175 (97 women and 78 men) healthy Italian subjects with at least 8 years of formal education. Norms for each set of questions are provided. An unexpected finding is that age did not play an influential role on performance, whereas education did: the higher it was, the better the score. Women proved to fare significantly worse than men. A feasibility check on 30 Alzheimer patients with very mild overall cognitive impairment showed that the general knowledge enquiry was relatively easy to administer. The discrimination power between normal controls and Alzheimer patients for each subtest has been calculated.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Gait apraxia after bilateral supplementary motor area lesion.

OBJECTIVES: The study aimed at addressing the issue of the precise nature of gait apraxia and the cerebral dysfunction responsible for it. METHODS: The case of a patient, affected by a bilateral infarction limited to a portion of the anterior cerebral artery territory is reported. The patient's ability to walk was formally assessed by means of a new standardised test. RESULTS: Due to an anomaly within the anterior cerebral artery system, the patient's lesion was centred on the supplementary motor regions of both hemispheres. He presented with clear signs of gait apraxia that could not be accounted for by paresis or other neurological deficits. No signs of any other form of apraxia were detected. CONCLUSIONS: The clinical profile of the patient and the analysis of 49 cases from previous literature suggest that gait apraxia should be considered a clinical entity in its own right and lesions to the supplementary motor areas are responsible for it.

Apraxias↗
PubMed2002

Object recognition and object orientation in Alzheimer's disease.

There are a wide variety of neuropsychological deficits in Alzheimer's disease (AD), among which are disorders of visual perception and spatial cognition. The present study investigated the ability of 20 mildly to moderately deteriorated patients with AD (and 174 age- and education-matched controls) on tasks that required them to visually identify, provide the canonical orientation of, and mentally rotate common objects. Some 85% of the AD patients performed poorly on all tasks. The authors were able to identify a small number of individual patients whose pattern of performance represented double dissociations between recognizing objects and knowing their canonical orientation. These findings are interpreted in the context of previous findings, especially as to whether information relating to an object's orientation and identity is independently coded.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Intrusion errors in numerical transcoding by Alzheimer patients.

The errors made by brain-damaged patients when they attempt numerical transcoding tasks have recently been considered as a possible aid to early diagnosis of the disease. The transcoding errors of 20 Alzheimer's disease patients are described, and the incidence of each kind of error compared with norms from healthy subjects. Tegnér and Nybäck (Tegnér R, Nybäck H. "To hundred and twenty4our": a study of transcoding in dementia. Acta Neurologica Scandinavia 1990; 81: 177-178) reported that Alzheimer patients often express numerical information in a mixture of verbal and digital codes and Kessler and Kalbe (Kessler J, Kalbe E. Written numerical transcoding in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Cortex 1996; 32: 755-761) suggested that such intrusions of the source code into the target code may not only be largely absent from the responses of the healthy population, but also from the transcoding operations of patients with other kinds of brain damage, such as aphasia. It was found that intrusion errors occurred much more frequently in the transcoding protocols of some of the Alzheimer patients than they do in those of healthy subjects. On the other hand, they were entirely absent from the protocols of other Alzheimer patients. The implications of the findings for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease are discussed, and the phenomenon of intrusion errors is considered in terms of some of the models of arithmetical processing that have been proposed.

Aged↗
PubMed2000

Color-to-figure matching in Alzheimer's disease.

Thirty-three patients with probable Alzheimer's disease were examined on a standardized Color-to-Figure Matching Test (CFMT) for which patients select appropriate colors from a set of colored pencils to match outline pictures of common objects. Seven patients performing below the CFMT cut-off score were further assessed using other tests investigating the naming of these outline pictures of common objects as well as the naming and sorting of colors: One patient performed badly in all tests; three other patients could not be considered true cases of poor object-color retrieval because of their inability to name the objects; and in the remaining three patients with unimpaired object naming (although two of them had word-finding difficulties), their impaired object-color retrieval was found to dissociate from both color sorting and color naming. These findings support the notion of a separation of pure color processing from object-color knowledge. Thus for patients with Alzheimer's disease, there is evidence in a few instances for a dissociation between object-color retrieval and both color sorting and color naming.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2000

Upper and lower face apraxia: role of the right hemisphere.

The aim of this study was to evaluate face apraxia in left- and right-hemisphere-damaged patients both in the acute and chronic stage of their disease. Two newly devised tests that assess movements of the upper and lower face districts were employed. On the whole, the proportion of left-hemisphere-damaged patients showing face apraxia were 46 and 68% for upper and lower face, respectively. A substantial proportion of right-hemisphere-damaged patients also showed face apraxia, i.e. 44% upper face and 38% lower face. Concomitant variables such as general severity, locus of lesion, language or visuo-spatial impairments, presence of neglect, interval from stroke, peculiarity of clusters of items or scoring procedures did not account for these results. These findings suggest that face apraxia in some patients may affect movements of the upper face district and that the right hemisphere plays a significant part in both upper and lower face praxis.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Working memory and vigilance: evidence from normal aging and Alzheimer's disease.

Both single unit recording and neuroradiological studies suggest that frontal and executive processes are necessary for visual maintenance rehearsal. This observation is linked to the classic vigilance literature by the proposal that vigilance decrement is found when the subject is required to maintain a representation over a brief delay. Vigilance performance was therefore studied in a sample of elderly subjects who were tested over a 40-min period involving perceptual or memory-based tasks which were matched for initial level of performance. There was a significant interaction between task and delay, with only the memory-based task showing decrement. A second study used the same two tasks to investigate vigilance performance in patients suffering from probable Alzheimer's Disease. Over a 15-min delay period, an equivalent interaction effect occurred, again indicating substantially greater decrement for the memory-based task. The results are interpreted as consistent with a role for the executive processes of working memory in both visual rehearsal and vigilance performance.

Aged↗
PubMed1999

The milan overall dementia assessment and the mini-mental state examination compared: an epidemiological investigation of dementia.

We assessed the validity of two screening tests [the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Milan Overall Dementia Assessment or (MODA)] in a population study on the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease, carried out in a small town in the north of Italy. A random sample of 1000 subjects aged 60 years or over entered the study. Subjects who scored below the cut-off points on MODA or on MMSE, or both, were further investigated with neuropsychological, laboratory and instrumental tests to ascertain a final diagnosis, which was considered as the gold standard. Our findings show that MODA has a higher sensitivity than MMSE in detecting subjects affected by dementing illnesses, while MMSE shows a higher specificity. MODA seems to be preferable to MMSE as a screening test for studies where a very high sensitivity is required.

Aged↗
PubMed1999

Fronto-temporal dementia and motor neuron disease: a neuropsychological study.

The neuropsychological follow-up study of a 58-year-old man suffering from Motor Neuron Disease (ALS/MND) and Fronto-Temporal Dementia (FTD) is reported. Neuromuscular signs first appeared at the age of 51 and slowly progressed to late bulbar involvement; behavioural symptoms of the frontal type first appeared around age 53; lastly, several neuropsychological symptoms suggestive of worsening temporal involvement supervened at age 57. Our patient died at 59 of respiratory failure with the classic clinical and neuroradiological picture of FTD. A short discussion addresses the controversial issue of the coupling of ALS/MND with Dementia and its possible interpretation as the expression of a chance association of relatively common diseases, versus that of a single multifaceted disease. The role of a detailed neuropsychological assessment is highlighted, within the context of increasingly specific diagnostic criteria for FTD.

Dementia↗