Personality change in dementia of the Alzheimer type

Personality and Psychological Health in Persons with Mild Cognitive Impairment

“…Indeed, no difference in neuroticism, extraversion, self-efficacy, and self-actualization (self-reference and openness to experiences) was found between participants with MCI and a group of healthy older controls matched on socio-demographic factors and recruited from a similar sociocultural background. Thus, contrary to AD (Aitken et al, 1999; Jacomb & Jorm, 1996; Petry et al, 1989; Strauss & Pasupathi, 1994), MCI is not associated with marked personality changes or disturbances. This is consistent with the absence of prefrontal anomalies in persons with MCI.…”

“…Though the location of these regions is still controversial, some key regions of the prefrontal cortex (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex) and of the limbic structures (amygdala, hippocampus, and nucleus accumbens) have been found to be associated with temperament (Talassi, Cipriani, Bianchetti, & Trabucchi, 2007), and their dysfunction in AD (Arnold, Hyman, Flory, Damasio, & Van Hoesen, 1991; Braak & Braak, 1991) may result in personality changes. Accordingly, many studies have reported personality changes in patients with AD (Aitken, Simpson, & Burns, 1999; Jacomb & Jorm, 1996; Petry, Cummings, Hill, & Shapira, 1989; Talassi et al, 2007), and some have reported a positive correlation between the magnitude of these changes and cognitive impairment (Aitken et al, 1999; Talassi et al, 2007, but see Petry et al, 1989).…”

Personality change in older adults with dementia: Occurrence and association with severity of cognitive impairment

“…However, the use of CAMDEX as a source of information about personality is more likely to result in the assessment of characteristics directly associated with changes accompanying dementia than if generic measures of personality were used because the selection of questions in CAMDEX is largely based upon clinical experience with cases of dementia. It is notable that linear progression is evident for virtually all characteristics in Table 1, whereas studies using measures of the Big 5 set of traits often show no effect [35,48,49,56]. It may well be that more systematic investigation of other characteristics may show inverted-U functions for other domains than anger/irritability.…”

Is an Engaging or Soothing Environment Associated With the Psychological Well‐Being of People With Dementia in Long‐Term Care?

“…In addition, premorbid personality traits do not reflect current personality but past personality traits. Although personality is relatively stable with aging, research showed that personality changes may happen with a dementia diagnosis (Balsis, Carpenter, & Storandt, 2005;Jacomb & Jorm, 1996;Wang et al, 2009). Thus, it is important to monitor personality changes in persons with and without dementia.…”