The "Sickness" Memory: Can Patients With Alzheimer Disease Remember the Diagnosis Announcement?

Diagnosis of Alzheimer disease (AD) can cause substantial psychological distress in patients. We thus assessed how patients with AD remember the announcement of diagnosis.

We recruited 47 participants with mild AD (26 women; M age=68.89 y, SD=7.37; M years of formal education=9.74, SD=3.00). We invited the participants to remember the moment when their clinicians announced their diagnosis, within 6 months of the event, as well as a control memory, over the same period. We analyzed memory retrieval regarding specificity, as well as the subjective experience of retrieval (ie, regarding mental time travel, visual imagery, emotion and importance).

No significant differences were observed between memory of diagnosis and control memory regarding specificity, mental time travel and visual imagery. However, memory of diagnosis triggered a more intense emotional experience and feeling of importance than control memory.

Retrieval of the diagnosis announcement can activate a strong emotional and personally important experience in patients with AD. When remembering the diagnosis announcement, patients with AD may re-experience some features of that turning point in which they shift from "person" to "patient."