Verbal memory in non-demented patients withidiopathic Parkinsons disease

Abstract

This study assessed the verbal memory functions of 20 patients with idiopathicParkinsons Disease (PD) without any clinical evidence of dementia and 20 Medical Control(MC) patients with similar levels of physical disability. Performance was compared on tests ofimmediate recall, word list learning in intentional and incidental contexts, word completionpriming, remote memory, metamemory and awareness of mnestic abilities. Significantdifferences were found in new learning of verbal material under incidental but not intentionallearning conditions. Group differences were also observed on measures of remote memory andmetamemory. The groups did not differ in word completion priming performance or recognitionmemory. These findings are consistent with other evidence suggesting that PD patients withoutdementia may have subtle cognitive deficits that affect memory performance. These may beattributable to impairments of attention allocation, formulation of retrieval strategies, andeffortful learning associated with frontal lobe dysfunction. The group differences could not beattributed to impairments of intellectual functions, verbal fluency, level of physical disability, ormood disturbance.