Validation of selective attention and memory
measures as early markers for Alzheimer’s disease
CS Tse1, LCW Lam2, DA Balota3, GTY Leung2, KT Hau1, JF Chang1
1 Department of Educational Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
2 Department of Psychiatry, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
3 Department of Psychology and Neurology, Washington University in St. Louis, USA
Key Messages
1. The measures of prospective memory (ie the
ability to remember what one has to do when a
specific event occurs in the future) and selective
attention (ie the ability to maintain the task
goal over time and resolve the conflict between
incongruent information) can discriminate
between healthy older adults and those who are
in the earliest stage of Alzheimer’s disease.
2. Prospective memory and selective attention performance declined as a function of Alzheimer’s disease severity, after taking into account age and number of years of education.
3. The discriminative power of prospective memory and selective attention measures for early-stage Alzheimer’s disease is comparable with that of other psychometric measures. These cognitive abilities should be incorporated into standard Alzheimer’s disease assessment.
2. Prospective memory and selective attention performance declined as a function of Alzheimer’s disease severity, after taking into account age and number of years of education.
3. The discriminative power of prospective memory and selective attention measures for early-stage Alzheimer’s disease is comparable with that of other psychometric measures. These cognitive abilities should be incorporated into standard Alzheimer’s disease assessment.