Abstract
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most frequent cause of dementia. The clinical symptoms of AD begin with impairment of memory and executive function followed by the gradual involvement of other functions, such as language, semantic knowledge, abstract thinking, attention, and visuospatial abilities. Visuospatial function involves the identification of a stimulus and its location and can be impaired at the beginning of AD. The Visual Object and Space Perception (VOSP) battery evaluates visuospatial function, while minimizing the interference of other cognitive functions.ObjectivesTo evaluate visuospatial function in early AD patients using the VOSP and determine cutoff scores to differentiate between cognitively healthy individuals and AD patients.MethodsThirty-one patients with mild AD and forty-four healthy elderly were evaluated using a neuropsychological battery and the VOSP.ResultsIn the VOSP, the AD patients performed more poorly in all subtests examining object perception and in two subtests examining space perception (Number Location and Cube Analysis). The VOSP showed good accuracy and good correlation with tests measuring visuospatial function.ConclusionVisuospatial function is impaired in the early stages of AD. The VOSP battery is a sensitive battery test for visuospatial deficits with minimal interference by other cognitive functions.
Highlights
Dementia is a syndrome characterized by the impairment of cognitive functions, such as memory, language, abstraction, organization, planning, attention, and visuospatial skills [1]
To evaluate visuospatial function in early Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients using the Visual Object and Space Perception (VOSP) and determine cutoff scores to differentiate between cognitively healthy individuals and AD patients
Visuospatial function in AD can be impaired at the beginning of the disease, declining gradually with the progression of the disease, and can lead to visual agnosia [5]
Summary
Dementia is a syndrome characterized by the impairment of cognitive functions, such as memory, language, abstraction, organization, planning, attention, and visuospatial skills [1] These deficits, which are associated with a decline in the performance of everyday activities, are crucial for the diagnosis of dementia [2]. The visuospatial deficits appear primarily as difficulties with reading, problems in discriminating form and color, an inability to perceive contrast, difficulties in visual spatial orientation and motion detection, agnosia and difficulty in developing visual strategies [6]. These deficits are related to the presence os neuropathology in the visual association cortex [4]. The assessment of these deficits is important in providing more diagnostic information for dementia and new perspectives for intervention
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