Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Executive function: the core feature of dementia?

Sarah E Voss1, Roger A Bullock

  • 1Kingshill Research Centre, Victoria Hospital, Swindon, UK. sarah.voss@kingshill-research.org

Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders
|June 24, 2004
PubMed
Summary

This study found that executive control function (ECF) is a shared cognitive feature in both Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD). This challenges current understandings of dementia

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

The development and evaluation of an educational intervention for primary care promoting person-centred responses to dementia.

Dementia (London, England)·2013
Same author

Vascular cognitive disorder: a new diagnostic category updating vascular cognitive impairment and vascular dementia.

Journal of the neurological sciences·2004
See all related articles

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neurology

Background:

  • Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD) are distinct neurodegenerative conditions.
  • The relationship between AD and VaD, particularly concerning shared cognitive deficits, requires further investigation.
  • Executive control function (ECF) is a critical cognitive domain implicated in various neurological disorders.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the role of executive control function (ECF) in differentiating Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD).
  • To compare cognitive performance, including ECF, between AD patients, VaD patients, and healthy controls.
  • To re-evaluate the core cognitive features of dementia based on shared pathological mechanisms.

Main Methods:

  • A comparative study involving 307 AD patients, 168 VaD patients, and 208 controls.
  • Administration of a comprehensive battery of cognitive function tests.
  • Factor analysis applied to patient data to identify underlying cognitive domains.

Main Results:

  • Healthy controls significantly outperformed both AD and VaD patient groups across all cognitive tests (p < 0.001).
  • AD patients demonstrated poorer performance than VaD patients on 11 out of 18 cognitive tests (p < 0.05).
  • Factor analysis revealed three distinct cognitive factors: episodic memory, ECF, and face recognition. Crucially, AD and VaD groups showed no significant differences on tests of ECF.

Conclusions:

  • Executive control function (ECF) represents a common cognitive deficit shared by both Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD).
  • The findings suggest that ECF is a core cognitive feature of dementia, irrespective of the underlying pathology.
  • This necessitates a re-evaluation of current conceptualizations of dementia, emphasizing shared cognitive impairments over distinct pathological markers.

Related Experiment Videos