Effects of Distraction and Pictorial Illustration on Memory for Countries in Older Adults with Probable Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

Eight participants with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) were trained to recall names of countries using the spaced-retrieval memory intervention. Six training sessions were administered on alternate days over a 2-week period. Half of the participants studied a target country alone and the other half studied a target country along with eight distractor countries. Training stimuli appeared in text-only format in half of the sessions and text with a color photograph of the country in the other sessions. On each trial, participants selected the target at increasingly longer retention intervals, contingent upon successful recall. Results indicated that the mean proportion of correct trials and longest duration achieved increased across training sessions, confirming the success of the spaced-retrieval intervention. Pictorial illustrations enhanced explicit memory for target country names. Implications of these data for current views on memory remediation in cognitively impaired older adults are discussed.

Acknowledgments

This study was conducted in partial fulfillment of the M.A. degree requirements at Louisiana State University by the first author. The authors thank Diane Kelly, Director of St. Francis House Adult Day Care Center, a program of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, for her help with participant recruitment and providing space for testing. The authors are grateful to Karri S. Hawley for her assistance with the research effort. The authors also thank William Delaune for statistical consultation.

Notes

^a Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE; Folstein, Folstein, & McHugh, 1975). Scores range from 0 to 30.

^b Geriatric Depression Scale—short form (GDS; Sheikh & Yesavage, 1986). Scores range from 0 to 15, with a score ≥5 suggestive of depression.

^c Vocabulary Short-Form of the WAIS Vocabulary test (Jastak & Jastak, 1965). Scores range from 0 to 40.

^d Forward Digit Span (FDS) from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (Wechsler, 1981). Scores range from 0 to 9.

^e Backward Digit Span (BDS) from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (Wechsler, 1981) Scores range from 0 to 8.

Note. Entries are the number of correct responses summed across participants and sessions within each week of training.

^a Maximum score of 12 per week.

^b Maximum score of 8 per week.