Discriminating age-associated memory impairment from Alzheimer's disease.

Abstract

The authors attempt to provide a better understanding of the differences between the normal memory declin characteristic of age-associated memory impairment (AAMI) and the pathological decline tupical of mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). Batteries of traditional memory tests and computer-simulated everyday-memory tests discriminated between the 2 groups, which were matched on age, gender, and education, with reasonable degrees of accuracy (87.5% and 88.4%, respectively). False positives were the most frequent classification errors when using either battery. These results indicate that is possible to use ecologically valid memory assessment paradigms without sacrificing discriminant validity. The clinical significance of discriminating mild AD from AAMI is discussed