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DOI: 10.1097/TGR.0b013e31821e5945
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COGNITIVE-COMMUNICATIVE FUNCTION IN
AD: IMPAIRED AND SPARED ABILITIES
In this section, a brief review is provided of attention,
executive function, and memory impairments resulting from AD. Attention is the gateway to what happens
in the rest of human cognition. It is the ability to focus on sensations received from the environment and
internal needs and desires.7(p262) Along with the hallmark episodic memory (EM) deficits, impairments of
attention are among the first to appear in AD.18 Attention may be categorized as selective attention (ie, focusing on a specific stimulus), sustained attention (ie,
maintaining focus on a stimulus for a specific length of
time), divided attention (ie, simultaneously attending
to multiple stimuli/tasks), or attention switching (ie,
shifting attention from one task to another). Whereas
persons with AD are easily distracted and have earlyappearing attention impairments, researchers have
shown that in the early stages, sustained attention and
divided attention7,19 are somewhat spared, whereas all aspects of attention are impaired in mild dementia. Because
sustained attention is preserved in early stage AD, persons can typically follow 2-step and 3-step commands and
carry on conversations. By the middle stages of AD, typically 4 to 10 years after diagnosis, individuals can usually
follow 2-step commands, participate in standardized testing, and make relevant statements about tangible stimuli
in conversation.7 In the late stages of AD, corresponding
with the final 1 to 3 years of the disease, persons with AD
are still able to attend to pleasant stimuli (eg, music).
Executive function encompasses multiple higher-order
cognitive abilities such as decision making, planning, selfmonitoring, initiation, organization, cognitive flexibility,
and inhibition. In AD, significant executive function impairments appear in the very early stage of AD20 and precede
impairment of praxis (ie, ability to carry out a skilled motor
activity such as dressing or using utensils to self-feed) or
communication.21
Next, we detail the impact of AD on human memory systems. Human memory is widely agreed upon to consist of
2 primary aspectsshorter-duration sensory and working
memory (WM) versus long-term memory. Long-term memory (Figure 1) consists of 2 neuroanatomically and functionally distinct systems of stored knowledgedeclarative or
explicit memory and nondeclarative or implicit memory.22
Working memory is a dynamic, short-term, limited capacity
buffer that enables storing information briefly and actively
manipulating it while it is being processed.23(p8) It has multiple components, with some more affected by AD than others. An example of one type of WM called the articulatory or
phonologic loop is when we repeat a phone number to ourselves to remember it long enough to dial it. Impairments
of WM and EM appear earliest in AD. These impairments of
WM interact with selective attention deficits, also present in
AD to make persons less efficient at encoding information.1
In general, WM deficits worsen with increasing dementia
severity. Yet, persons with AD retain simpler aspects of WM
capacity, as demonstrated on digit span tasks24 (ie, being
able to remember a short string of numbers in sequence).
Episodic memory is a component of declarative or explicit memory that allows us to consciously recall episodes
and events.25 An example of an EM problem in AD may be
having a telephone conversation with someone and minutes later, having no recollection of the specific details of
this conversation. The neuropathology distinctive of AD
begins in brain areas important to EMspecifically the
hippocampus and the entorhinal and perirhinal cortices in
the medial temporal lobe (Table 1). Thus, early-appearing
and severe EM impairments are the hallmark of AD and
are required for its clinical diagnosis. In contrast, semantic memory (ie, knowledge of facts and conceptual knowledge of the world) is more spared early on than EM.9 Next,
we discuss nondeclarative memory in AD.
Nondeclarative memory (Figure 1) consists of habits,
procedural memory, priming, and conditioned responses.1
Habits are well-rehearsed and almost automatic, behavioral
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TABLE 1
Memory System
Neurobiological Substrates
Working memory
Frontal Lobes
Dorsolateral prefrontral cortex (DLPFC)
Brocas area
Inferior parietal and inferior temporal
cortices
Occipitoparietal cortex
Declarative memory
Nondeclarative
memory
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INTERVENTIONS
Cognitive-linguistic interventions may be direct or indirect. Direct interventions are those in which PWD participate in restorative or compensatory programs.10 These are
contrasted with indirect interventions, which impact the
functioning of PWD through training of professional and
personal caregivers, environmental modifications, and
the development of meaningful and stimulating therapeutic activities.38 Another method of categorizing interventions is with regard to their intended impact. The World
Health Organization39 has developed a conceptual frameworkthe International Classification of Functioning,
Disability, and Health (Figure 2)that illustrates how
dementia affects an individual at 3 levels. Thus, dementia affects a persons body functions and structures (ie,
a persons physiological or psychological functioning),
activities (ie, ability to complete specific tasks), and participation (ie, being able to participate fully in life roles).
A persons performance at each level is, in turn, impacted
by environmental and personal factors. Hopper40 stresses
that the purpose of designing and administering skilled
interventions to PWD is not to alter their body functions
and structures or underlying impairment but to impact a
persons activity and participation despite his or her dementia diagnosis.
FEATURES OF A SUCCESSFUL
INTERVENTION FOR PERSONS WITH
DEMENTIA
In this section, we emphasize important features that render an intervention more likely to succeed for PWD. Based
on emerging principles of experience-dependent neuroplasticity14 and published research1,9,10, these features are as
follows:
a. Providing repeated presentation of target
information;
b. Incorporating learning by doing and requiring
active generation of target responses;
c. Reducing the possibility of errors during initial
learning;
d. Tapping into relatively spared sustained attention
and minimizing distractions; and
e. Using rich, tangible sensory stimuli and
meaningful cues to support retrieval.
These features are all exemplified in the 3 interventions reviewed in this article. We selected SRT,41-43 memory
books and wallets,44,45 and MI46,47 for discussion in this article. These 3 techniques were chosen for analysis based on
the quality of available scientific evidence supporting their
use, strong evidence of positive treatment outcomes for
PWD, and their potential to address the activity and participation levels of World Health Organizations framework.39
Furthermore, these techniques have interdisciplinary appeal and have been successfully implemented by clinicians
and researchers from multiple disciplines (recreational activities, speech-language pathology, occupational therapy,
physical therapy, and nursing).
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Figure 3. Visual schematic of spaced retrieval training for a fall prevention strategy.
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EM deficits. Although this mechanism is not fully understood, current evidence reveals several factors that underlie
the success of SRT. It is likely that SRT works because of repeated opportunities to retrieve target information,6,10 emphasis on retrieval success,41 and gradual building up of duration over which recall is maintained.60 Furthermore, SRT
capitalizes on relatively spared implicit memory processes59
and requires little cognitive effort from dementia patients.49
Another reason why SRT works so well is because of
the incidental use of errorless learning in its implementation.59 Errorless learning is contrasted with routine trial
and error learning. For persons with intact EM, trial and
error learning works well as individuals remember their
erroneous response and subsequent corrective feedback
and retain the entire episode of making the error and being corrected. This retention of the learning episode reduces the likelihood of subsequent erroneous responses.
For PWD, however, the very act of making an error is undesirable early in the learning process. This is because
PWD have severe EM impairments and remember neither
their errors nor corrective feedback in response to errors.
Therefore, they make the same errors recurrently,64 and
the more frequently an error is made, the more it gets reinforced. Thus, using errorless learning principles65,66 for
constraining stimulus presentation, task instructions and
permitted responses may better facilitate new learning in
PWD. Errorless learning is incorporated into SRT by ensuring that participants always end a recall trial or therapeutic
session with a correct desired response (eg, recalling facts
or procedures).
It is important to establish whether the positive outcomes of SRT are because of the repeated retrieval attempts or the gradual increase in interval spacing. Most
investigators have used gradually lengthening time intervals in SRT; however, 2 groups of researchers have recently reported similar successful outcomes from spaced and
fixed length of recall intervals. Hochhalter et al67 compared
expanding intervals to other rehearsal schedules (eg, random intervals and uniformly distributed intervals) with a
small sample of persons with AD and found no significant
advantage for spaced retrieval over equally spaced practice
schedules. Similarly, Balota et al68 found no advantage of
expanded retrieval over an equal interval schedule in improving the memory performance of healthy older adults
and PWD. Together, these results suggest that spaced
intervals may not be as critical to the success of SRT as
repeated presentation and frequent retrieval of a correct
response.
Another issue for practitioners implementing SRT
pertains to activities conducted during recall intervals.
It seems intuitive that task-related activities during intervals may maximize learning, whereas unrelated activities may interfere with and adversely impact subsequent
recall performance. However, empirical evidence does
Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation
not support this intuition. Recently, Hopper and her colleagues56 demonstrated that filling intervals with tasks unrelated to a target face-name association did not negatively
impact learning by persons with mild to moderately severe
AD. This finding has important implications for practitioners because it suggests that various activities such as conversation, having a snack, or taking vital signs can be nested
within SRT recall intervals. Regarding candidacy for SRT,
Hopper et al50 suggest that this technique is effective for
PWD with mild to moderately severe dementia, associated
EM impairments, and the ability to attend to structured
learning tasks.
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TABLE 2
Montessori Activitiesa
Sensory discrimination
Late-stage or advanced
dementia
Scooping exercises
Pouring activities
Pouring drinks
Moderate dementia
Seriation activities
Moderate dementia
Squeezing activities
Matching activities
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tangible sensory materials (eg, real objects, colorful tokens, textured fabric swatches, etc) that are functional and
aesthetically pleasing, while emphasizing visual, auditory,
and tactile discrimination. Finally, Montessori activities are
designed with inbuilt controls to facilitate self-recognition
of errors in task completion. For example, persons with
moderate dementia may be assigned a task of sorting red
spoons and blue forks into a red and blue bin, respectively.
Because each item has a distinct primary color and must
match the color of the bin in which it is placed, a person
with dementia is more likely to complete this task successfully and be able to monitor his or her own performance
and self-correct errors.
Regarding candidacy for MIs, Mahendra et al47 recommend that suitable candidates for such interventions are
PWD who have some spared motor learning capacity, social skills, and ability to initiate verbal communication. Furthermore, ideally, candidates for Montessori interventions
will have mild to moderate severity of dementia, absence
of combative behavior, and functional hearing and vision
abilities to attend to sensory stimuli, understand task instructions, and participate in intervention sessions.
CONCLUSIONS
In summary, we have presented robust evidence for the
efficacy of 3 specific interventions for PWDSRT, memory
books and memory wallets, and MIs. This evidence provides a compelling foundation for clinicians, researchers,
and caregivers to change their perceptions about the restorative potential of PWD. Furthermore, on the back of
such empirical evidence, current standards of clinical care
must change to provide PWD optimal opportunities to
maintain and enhance cognitive and communicative function, thereby promoting their sense of self and preventing
excess disability, given a diagnosis of dementia.
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