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Selective attention in Alzheimer's disease
1Department of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Perth WA 6009, Australia. jonathan@psy.uwa.edu.au
Frontiers in Bioscience : a Journal and Virtual Library
|February 15, 2001
Summary
Selective attention, particularly effortful visual search, is impaired in Alzheimer's disease (AD). These deficits are more pronounced in AD than in healthy aging or Parkinson's disease, suggesting a key role for attentional dysfunction.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Gerontology
Background:
- Selective attention is crucial for cognitive function.
- Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by cognitive decline, including potential attentional deficits.
- Existing clinical measures for attentional dysfunction in AD are limited.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review selective attention functioning in Alzheimer's disease (AD).
- To present findings from studies on simple and conjoined visual search in AD.
- To compare AD findings with those in healthy elderly individuals and Parkinson's disease patients.
Main Methods:
- Review of experimental literature on selective attention in AD.
- Empirical studies involving simple and conjoined feature visual search tasks.
- Comparative analysis of results across AD patients, healthy elderly, and Parkinson's disease patients.
Main Results:
- More effortful aspects of selective attention, specifically conjoined feature visual search, are impaired in AD.
- These selective attention deficits in AD are disproportionately severe compared to other cognitive impairments.
- Similar deficits were not observed in Parkinson's disease patients, and AD impairments were quantitative, not qualitative, extensions of healthy aging.
Conclusions:
- Impaired selective attention, especially effortful visual search, may be an early and prominent feature of Alzheimer's disease.
- These findings highlight the need for better clinical measures of attentional dysfunction in AD.
- Selective attention deficits in AD are distinct from those in Parkinson's disease and represent an exacerbation of age-related changes.