Encoding, storage and retrieval processes of the memory and the implications for motor practice in stroke patients

This study intended to evaluate the influence of stroke on memory processes (encoding, storage and retrieval) of visual and verbal stimuli and its implications to the motor practice. Twelve patients (6 with right and 6 with left brain lesions; 6-36 months post-lesion) and 12 healthy subjects, 45-65 years old from both sexes were studied. The encoding and storage processes were evaluated during test sessions where each subject had three attempts to identify two lists with 10 stimuli each (10 figures and 10 words referring to animals and objects). The retrieval process was evaluated by immediate free retrieval and by recognition tests. Data were analyzed by Mann-Whitney test. Performance was worse in patients (encoding - visual: p=0.0001 and verbal: p=0.0001; storage - verbal: p=0.0001) and those with right lesions had worse performance in visual encoding (p=0.0005) and those with left lesions had in verbal storage (p=0.0246) and retrieval (p=0.0001). According to results it is suggested that the patients were not able to adequately codify and store the information, however, they were adequately able to recover by recognition and this implicates the necessity to make a observational, distributed and varied practice in cerebrovascular disease patients therapy.