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Biomedical subjects

M S Albert

Publications and source records attributed to M S Albert.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
PubMed1986

Combination therapy with lecithin and ergoloid mesylates for Alzheimer's disease.

A 10-week placebo-controlled double-blind crossover protocol of combination therapy with lecithin and ergoloid mesylates was conducted in seven patients with presenile and senile dementia, Alzheimer's type. The patients' abilities to detect spatial arrangements, to recognize faces, and to identify new words on the Delayed Recognition Span Test were not significantly improved. Dementia Rating Scale scores before treatment were not significantly different from those after treatment.

Aged↗
PubMed1984

Age-related differences in brain electrical activity of healthy subjects.

A combined neurophysiological (electroencephalographic [EEG] and sensory evoked potential) and neuropsychological investigation was performed on 63 healthy men ranging in age from 30 to 80 years. Although alpha frequency diminished slightly with age, neither amplitude nor frequency demonstrated a high age correlation. Alpha blocking, in contrast, did correlate with age, in the direction of reduced alpha reactivity. EEG background activity underwent significant age-correlated change, consisting of reductions in slow activity and augmentation of fast activity, i.e., EEG desynchronization. Previously reported age-related EEG slowing may be related to the presence of disease in the populations studied. Topographic analysis revealed that the greatest change occurred in the temporal lobes. More change was noted either early or late in the age span, suggesting that aging is a nonlinear process. More features were derived from the right hemisphere than from the left, suggesting that the aging process is not completely symmetrical.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Brain electrical activity in patients with presenile and senile dementia of the Alzheimer type.

Neurophysiological and behavioral data obtained from 9 patients with presenile dementia and 10 with senile dementia of the Alzheimer type were compared with similar data from 25 age- and sex-equivalent controls. Compared with the healthy controls, both patients groups demonstrated increased background electroencephalographic slowing with a reduction in fast activity (synchronization). Topographic analyses of data from electroencephalographic and evoked potential studies indicate that areas of maximal group differences between the presenile patients and their controls include the right posterior temporal and, to a lesser extent, left midtemporal to anterior temporal areas, whereas the maximal differences between the senile patient group and their controls involve the midfrontal and anterior frontal lobes, bilaterally. Moreover, right-sided numerical features derived from topographic maps proved most useful in differentiating the presenile patients and their age-matched controls, whereas bilateral features were more useful in separating senile patients from their controls. These topographic dissimilarities between patient groups suggest that an age-disease interaction exists between patients with presenile and senile dementia of the Alzheimer type. Correlational analyses between neuropsychological test scores and neurophysiological features indicate that increased slowing and decreased fast activity were associated with poorer test performance.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Memory, attention, and functional status in community-residing Alzheimer type dementia patients and optimally healthy aged individuals.

This paper reports the results of two studies. Investigation I examined patterns of cognitive performance in healthy controls and mildly-to-moderately impaired patients with senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT). Investigation II focused on the degree to which cognitive test scores could predict functional competence in SDAT patients. The samples included 23 controls, 18 mildly impaired SDAT, and 16 moderately impaired SDAT patients. Cognitive measures included tests of attention, calculation, recognition memory, recall, and orientation. The functional competence measures included maintenance, communication, and recreational abilities. Investigation I found that the patterns of attention and memory that distinguish control from mildly impaired SDAT patients differ from those that distinguish mildly from moderately impaired SDAT patients. Investigation II found that it is possible to predict behavioral competence in individuals with dementia from a knowledge of their attentional and memory deficits.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1984

The dexamethasone suppression test in patients with presenile and senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type.

The dexamethasone suppression test (DST) was performed on 18 patients with presenile and senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type. Objective cognitive testing showed that 13 patients were mildly to moderately impaired and five were moderately to severely impaired. The Hamilton Depression Scale yielded normal results in all patients. The DST results were abnormal in only one of the mildly impaired patients but in four of the five moderately impaired patients. These data suggest that the DST may be a useful clinical tool in mildly impaired patients with Alzheimer's disease but is likely to be confounded by disease in moderately to severely impaired patients.

Aged↗
PubMed1983

The effect of verbal mediators on the pictorial memory of brain-damaged patients.

Patients with alcoholic Korskoff's syndrome, Huntington's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease or right-hemisphere damage were administered a picture recognition task in which they attempted to associate specific human and animal figures with particular scenic backgrounds. Under one condition (no-story), no explicit verbal cues were provided to help the patients associate the figures with the scenes; in a second condition, stories, stories linking the figures to the background scenes were read to the patients during the study period. Although all four patient groups were impaired in picture-context recognition under the no-story condition, the groups differed significantly in their ability to use the stories to improve their pictorial memory. The Huntington and right-hemisphere patients' picture recognition showed significant improvement when stories were provided, whereas the Korsakoff and Alzheimer patients failed to use this verbal material in a productive manner. The groups also differed in their tendency to make intrusion (i.e., perseverative) errors on the picture-context recognition task. These group differences may be related to the combination of language, cognitive and motivational deficits associated with each disease.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Patterns of remote memory in amnesic and demented patients.

Patients with Huntington's disease (HD) were compared on three tests of remote memory with patients with alcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) and with control subjects. Though both patient groups were severely impaired in overall performance with respect to the normal control subjects on all three tests, striking differences were evident in the degree of loss for each decade interval. The patients with HD had as much difficulty identifying faces and events from the 1930s and 1940s as faces and events from the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, the pattern of their remote memory loss was "flat", that is, equal for all periods sampled. The retrograde amnesia of the patients with KS was characterized by a steep temporal gradient in which facts pertaining to the distant past were more accurately retrieved than facts concerning events that occurred just prior to the onset of their illness. Taken in conjunction with other recent studies of retrograde amnesia, these results suggest that neurologic patients exhibit at least three different patterns of remote memory loss.

Alcohol Amnestic Disorder↗
PubMed1981

Development of remote memory loss in patients with Huntington's disease.

Patients recently diagnosed with Huntington's Disease (RHD) were compared to three tests of remote memory to advanced Huntington's Disease patients and to control subjects. The RHD patients demonstrated a remote memory impairment that was particularly evident when no cues were given to aid recall. Thus, early in the disease process, HD patients not only are impaired in the acquisition of new materials but have difficulty recalling remote events. It was also significant that, like the advanced patients, the deficits of the RHD patients extended over many decades, with approximately equivalent losses for each decade interval. This suggests that one form of retrograde amnesia consists of an extensive ungrade loss of remote memories.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Temporal gradients in the retrograde amnesia of patients with alcoholic Korsakoff's disease.

Eleven alcoholic patients with Korsakoff's disease and 15 control subjects were given three tests of retrograde amnesia. The first consisted of photographs of famous faces from the past, the second was a recall test of famous people and events, and the third was a multiple-choice questionnaire. To determine whether previously reported temporal gradients (ie, preservation of remote events) were related to item difficulty, half of the questions dealt with events of transient fame while half concerned subjects that continued to receive public attention for many years. The findings indicate that alcoholic patients with Korsakoff's disease have a marked retrograde amnesia that is characterized by a steep temporal gradient, and that this gradient is not an artifact due to the difficulty of the questions or the method of testing.

Alcohol Amnestic Disorder↗