Prose recall in dementia. A comparison of delay intervals
L. L. Chapman, D. A. White and M. Storandt
Department of Psychology, Washington University, St Louis, Mo., USA.
OBJECTIVE: To explore one methodological variation, delay length, that may
contribute to contradictory findings in the literature regarding the use of
delayed recall in the detection of early-stage dementia of the Alzheimer
type. DESIGN: Comparison of participants with dementia and without dementia
on a prose recall task at both 10- and 30-minute delay intervals. SETTING:
Washington University Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, St Louis, Mo.
PARTICIPANTS: Participants with very mild dementia of the Alzheimer type (n
= 136) and uncompromised elderly individuals (n = 197). MAIN OUTCOME
MEASURES: Results of the Logical Memory subtest from the Wechsler Memory
Scale with immediate recall and 10- and 30-minute delayed recall. RESULTS:
Participants with dementia recalled significantly less material than
elderly controls at both immediate and delayed recall (P < .001).
Multiple regression analyses revealed that dementia classification failed
to account for additional variance in the 30-minute delayed score beyond
that which could be accounted for by the immediate score. A small but
significant proportion of variance was accounted for in the 10-minute
delayed score beyond that which could be accounted for by the immediate
recall score. CONCLUSION: Delayed recall of a prose passage does not appear
to enhance the differentiation of very mild dementia of the Alzheimer type
from normal aging in a meaningful way, whether the recall delay is 10 or 30
minutes.
