[Memory disorders in Parkinson's disease]

52 patients with Parkinson's diseases (PD), 11 patients with suspected Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 20 healthy individuals were observed. The age of the examined persons was 55-74 years. Both quantitative evaluation of the neurologic symptoms and estimation of high psychic functions were performed by means of A.R.Luria's method. Memory tests were also used. It was found that PD was practically always accompanied by memory impairments which were out of the normal age limits. The main mechanism of memory impairment in PD without dementia included insufficiency of independent organization of the mnestic activity at the stages of memorizing and reproduction. Besides, a primary disorder was observed in PD with dementia. There were memory impairments in PD with dementia (more crude disturbances of both involuntary memory and processing of information during memorizing) and in AD (disorders of a semantic memory). It was found that disorders of memory trace consolidation were more dependent on the age of PD beginning, whereas insufficiency of the independent organization of the mnestic activity--on its duration. The majority of memory indices correlated in PD with a degree of the disorders of a gait and postural reflexes. It is suggested that memory defects in PD are manifestations of the main pathologic process which had some differences from the other neurogeriatric diseases.