Clinical criteria for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease include insidious onset and progressive impairment of memory and other cognitive functions. There are no motor, sensory, or coordination deficits early in the disease. The diagnosis cannot be determined by laboratory tests. These tests are important primarily in identifying other possible causes of dementia that must be excluded before the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease may be made with confidence. Neuropsychological tests provide confirmatory evidence of the diagnosis of dementia and help to assess the course and response to therapy. The criteria proposed are intended to serve as a guide for the diagnosis of probable, possible, and definite Alzheimer's disease; these criteria will be revised as more definitive information become available.

https://n.neurology.org/content/neurology/34/7/939.full.pdf

Clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease : report of the NINCDS-ADRDA Work Group under the auspices of Department of Health and Human Services Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease

Accurate clinical staging of dementia in older subjects has not previously been achieved despite the use of such methods as psychometric testing, behavioural rating, and various combinations of simpler psychometric and behavioural evaluations The Clinical Dementia Rating (CRD), a global rating device, was developed for a prospective study of mild senile dementia--Alzheimer type (SDAT) Reliability, validity, and correlational data are discussed The CRD was found to distinguish unambiguously among older subjects with a wide range of cognitive function, from healthy to severely impaired

A new clinical scale for the staging of dementia.

A theory of the way working memory capacity constrains comprehension is proposed. The theory proposes that both processing and storage are mediated by activation and that the total amount of activation available in working memory varies among individuals. Individual differences in working memory capacity for language can account for qualitative and quantitative differences among college-age adults in several aspects of language comprehension. One aspect is syntactic modularity: The larger capacity of some individuals permits interaction among syntactic and pragmatic information, so that their syntactic processes are not informationally encapsulated. Another aspect is syntactic ambiguity: The larger capacity of some individuals permits them to maintain multiple interpretations. The theory is instantiated as a production system model in which the amount of activation available to the model affects how it adapts to the transient computational and storage demands that occur in comprehension.

/pdf/a-capacity-theory-of-comprehension-individual-differences-in-4pgbsbb38c.pdf

A capacity theory of comprehension: individual differences in working memory.

Background: Special care facilities for patients with dementia gain increasing attention. However, an overview of studies examining the differences between care f

/pdf/special-care-units-and-traditional-care-in-dementia-5awfpijrcf.pdf

Special Care Units and Traditional Care in Dementia: Relationship with Behavior, Cognition, Functional Status and Quality of Life - A Review

Background Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is considered to be a transitional stage between aging and Alzheimer disease (AD). Objective To determine whether MCI represents early-stage AD by examining its natural history and neuropathologic basis. Design A prospective clinical and psychometric study of community-living elderly volunteers, both nondemented and minimally cognitively impaired, followed up for up to 9.5 years. Neuropathologic examinations were performed on participants who had undergone autopsy. Setting An AD research center. Participants All participants enrolled between July 1990 and June 1997 with Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scores of 0 (cognitively healthy; n = 177; mean age, 78.9 years) or 0.5 (equivalent to MCI; n = 277; mean age, 76.9 years). Based on the degree of clinical confidence that MCI represented dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT), 3 subgroups of individuals with CDR scores of 0.5 were identified: CDR 0.5/DAT, CDR 0.5/incipient DAT, and CDR 0.5/uncertain dementia. Main Outcome Measure Progression to the stage of CDR 1, which characterizes mild definite DAT. Results Survival analysis showed that 100% of CDR 0.5/DAT participants progressed to greater dementia severity over a 9.5-year period. At 5 years, rates of progression to a score of CDR 1 (or greater) for DAT were 60.5% (95% confidence interval [CI], 50.2%-70.8%) for the CDR 0.5/DAT group, 35.7% (95% CI, 21.0%-50.3%) for the CDR 0.5/incipient DAT group, 19.9% (95% CI, 8.0%-31.8%) for the CDR 0.5/uncertain dementia group, and 6.8% (95% CI, 2.2%-11.3%) for CDR 0/controls. Progression to greater dementia severity correlated with degree of cognitive impairment at baseline. Twenty-four of the 25 participants with scores of CDR 0.5 had a neuropathologic dementing disorder, which was AD in 21 (84%). Conclusions Individuals currently characterized as having MCI progress steadily to greater stages of dementia severity at rates dependent on the level of cognitive impairment at entry and they almost always have the neuropathologic features of AD. We conclude that MCI generally represents early-stage AD.

https://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/alzheimer.pdf

Mild cognitive impairment represents early-stage Alzheimer disease.

Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1972, Vol 17(11), 614. Reviews the book, The Assessment of Aphasia and Related Disorders by Harold Goodglass (1972). This small volume is designed as an introduction to the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Test. It deals briefly with the authors' concept of aphasia as a neuropsychological, psycholinguistic phenomena. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

The assessment of aphasia and related disorders

/pdf/the-acquisition-of-word-meanings-a-developmental-study-oowak3ljm4.pdf

The Acquisition of Word Meanings: A Developmental Study

Introduction. On Methodology. Method. Dementia of the Alzheimer's Type. Fronto-temporal Dementia. Primary Progressive Aphasia. Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (Steele-Richardson-Olszewski Syndrome). Parkinson's Disease. Huntington's Disease. Multiple Sclerosis. Major Depressive Disorder. Schizophrenia. Obsessive-complusive Disorder. Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. Summary.

Edith Kaplan

Papers

The assessment of aphasia and related disorders

The Acquisition of Word Meanings: A Developmental Study

Neuropsychological Differential Diagnosis

The handbook of Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Usage : clinical and research applications

Stimulus cards : the assessment of aphasia and related disorders, 2nd edition