Comparing of learning and memory functions of patients with prodromal vascular dementia and prodromal alzheimer’s disease with healthy control group

Abstract

It is known that learning and memory impairments are at the forefront in both patients with prodromal Alzheimer’s dementia (pAD) and those with prodromal vascular dementia (pVD). In pAD, learning and memory impairments are predominantly prominent. On the other hand, pVD is characterized by impairments in various areas, mainly in the executive functions. This is a preliminary study aimed at comparing the learning and memory functions of patients diagnosed with pVD and pAD in terms of their incidental recall, delayed recall, and learning. A total of 100 adults, comprising 42 females and 58 males participated in the study. A total of 26 patients with a clinical diagnosis of pAD (N = 14) and pVD (N = 12) were compared with 74 cognitively healthy people. The scores for pAD and pVD groups were significantly lower than those of the healthy individuals, and the pAD group achieved the lowest scores in all the trials. The scores of the pVD group were lower than those of the healthy group but higher than those of the pAD group. The number of learning trials were higher than that of control group for both pAD and pVD. In other words, pAD and pVD groups needed more learning trials to remember. Overall, pVD group was able to learn more materials compaired to pAD. The findings of this study could be considered as useful in differentiating the two groups for neuropsychological evaluation.