Prospective and retrospective memory in mild Alzheimer's disease.

OBJECTIVE To study prospective and retrospective memory in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). METHOD Twenty mild AD and 20 matched normal control subjects were included. Diagnosis of AD was based on DSM-IV and NINCDS-ADRDA criteria, using CDR 1 and MMSE scores from 16 to 24 for mild AD. All subjects underwent retrospective (Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, RAVLT) and prospective memory tests (the appointment and belonging subtests of the Rivermead Behavioral Memory Test, RBMT; and two tests made to this study: the clock and the animals test), as well as MMSE, neuropsychological counterproofs, and Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia. The data was analyzed with Wilcoxon test and Spearman correlation coefficient. RESULTS AD patients performed worse than controls in prospective and retrospective memory tests, with poorer performance in retrospective memory. There was no correlation between prospective memory and attention, visual perception, executive function, or depression scores. CONCLUSION Prospective and, in higher degree, retrospective memory are primarily and independently impaired in mild AD.