[Interaction between neuropsychological deficit in execution/ performance and ability to carry out daily activities...

The objective of this paper is to establish whether the results obtained in a sample of 54 patients with alzheimer-type dementia, while carrying out different executive-praxia tasks is related to or influences the daily life and habits of these people, as analyzed on the Blessed dementia scale. The diagnosis of Alzheimer-type dementia was established on the criteria developed by the NINCDS-ADRDA. Physical, neurological, neuropsychological, EEG and tomo-densitometric examinations were done in all cases. Executive-praxia function was analyzed on 5 sub-scales; non-symbolic praxias, bucco-facial praxias, purposeless reflex praxias, reflex praxias with objects/instruments and praxias of ideas. There were significant differences depending on the praxias used. The more difficult tasks were evaluated by execution praxias involving ideational, non-symbolic executive praxias. The changes found on the subscale of activities of daily living were partly due to poor non-symbolic, ideatorial praxic execution and to a lesser extent to the poor results of the purposeless reflexive symbolic praxic execution and bucco-facial praxia. On the sub-scale of changes in habits, the non-symbolic praxias and ideatorial praxias explain the small percentage variation found on this sub-scale.