The Preclinical Phase of Alzheimer Disease

Abstract

The "preclinical phase" of detectable lowering of cognitive functioning precedes the appearance of pAD by many years. Measures of retention of information and abstract reasoning are among the strongest predictors of pAD when the interval between initial assessment and the development of pAD is long. Arch Neurol. 2000.

Imaging the progression of Alzheimer pathology through the brain

“…It is striking that minor deficits in learning and retention and abstract reasoning occur up to 22 years before the development of AD (36). Such a long time course is similar to that of other common diseases, such as atherosclerosis.…”

Brain oscillatory responses to an auditory-verbal working memory task in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

“…Tests used in the assessment of nonmemory cognitive functions were parts of the WAIS-R (Wechsler, 1992), the Boston Naming Test (Laine et al, 1997) and the Trail Making Test A + B. Episodic memory functions were assessed by the complete WMS-R (Wechsler, 1996) and the Benton Visual Retention Test. Particularly, the logical memory subtest of the WMS-R has in previous studies been found to be sensitive to early and mild AD (Collie and Maruff, 2000;Elias et al, 2000). In the WMS-R, savings scores were calculated for logical memory, verbal paired associates, visual paired associates and visual reproduction.…”

Neurocognitive Deficits and Effects of Cognitive Reserve in Mild Cognitive Impairment

“…While this is a clear-cut operationalization, one may argue that occupational achievements in later life should also be considered. A significant protective effect of occupation could be shown in previously reported studies [15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24] even after controlling for covariates including age and education [25]. …”