Paired associate learning in senile dementia of the Alzheimer type

J. M. Duchek, M. Cheney, F. R. Ferraro and M. Storandt
Department of Occupational Therapy, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110.

A study was conducted to examine the potential explicit learning ability in senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT) as a function of (1) the difficulty of the to-be-remembered material and (2) the severity of the dementia. The Associate Learning task from the Wechsler Memory Scale was administered to healthy older adults and individuals with questionable, mild, and moderate SDAT. Individuals with SDAT showed poorer learning performance across trials than healthy older adults. Individuals with questionable and mild SDAT did show evidence for learning across trials for highly related paired associates. For unrelated-paired associates, however, only individuals with questionable SDAT showed some evidence for increased learning across trials.