Study of the calculational capacity of mild and moderate patients with Alzheimer disease

Abstract

Objective To study the characteristics of the declination of calculational capacity of mild and moderate patients with Alzheimer disease(AD) . Methods All the participants including 68 normal aged people,35 patients with mild AD and 19 patients with moderate AD were evaluated by mini mental state examination(MMSE),Wechsler adult intelligence scale-calculation subtest and EC301 number processing and calculation-Chinese revised(EC301-CR). ER301-CR includes mental calculation, written calculation, estimation calculation, abacus calculation and verbal calculation (each category consists of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) and the adjacent numbers memory. Results There was prominent discrepancy among the normal aged group, mild AD group and moderate AD group in mental calculation (23.1±1.4,18.5±4.4,13.7±7.8,F = 46.1,P <0.01), written calculation (22.4±2.0,16.7±5.5,9.8±9.6,F =51.0,P <0.01), estimation calculation (7.3±1.0,5.1±2.8,2.5±3.0,F =45.4,P <0.01) and verbal calculation (11.5±1.7,7.5±2.4,5.5±2.4,F =81.1,P <0.01) capabilities, and the impairment of abacus calculation presented earlier than the others. However, there was no difference in abacus calculation between the mild AD group and the moderate AD group( P ＞0.05).Among the written calculation, the declination of multiplication occurred earlier than the others, and the declination of the other three were synchronized. According to the findings of mental calculation and the adjacent numbers memory, the digit size was closely related to the impairment of calculational capacity of AD patients.Conclusion There was apparent declination of calculational capabilities in AD patients. And the determinant of calculational capacity in AD patients was the magnitude of the numbers instead of calculational categories or ways. Key words: Calculation; Alzheimer disease; Mental calculation; Written calculation