Luzzi Simona, Piccirilli Massimo, Provinciali Leandro
Unit of Neurology, Department of Neuroscience, University of Ancona, Italy.
Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord. 2007 Apr-Jun;21(2):130-5. doi: 10.1097/WAD.0b013e318064f445.
To investigate the ability to recognize facial emotions in patients with Alzheimer disease (AD). Happiness and sadness, fundamental emotions that are easily recognized across cultures, were evaluated. Results were further analyzed in relation to demographic, clinical, and neuropsychologic characteristics.
A test exploring recognition of facial emotions using chimeric faces based on Jaynes' happy and sad faces was administered to 71 patients with probable AD.
The ability to identify positive and negative facial emotions was largely preserved in AD subjects. Impaired recognition of facial emotions was found in 27%. Poor test performance was associated with low scores on constructional praxis and nonverbal memory tasks.
Decoding of emotional facial expressions seems to be differently affected in relation to patients' neuropsychologic profile, as poor test performance closely correlated with nonverbal cognitive impairment. This emotion-discrimination disorder likely characterizes the behavior of a subset of AD patients with predominant right-hemisphere dysfunction. A preserved ability to process the emotional features of faces may have an important role in the management of demented patients, and suggests the use of nonverbal communication as an integrative/alternative system. The simple test used in our study may be a useful clinical tool to explore emotional behavior in demented subjects.
研究阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者识别面部表情的能力。对快乐和悲伤这两种跨文化易于识别的基本情绪进行评估。并根据人口统计学、临床和神经心理学特征对结果作进一步分析。
采用基于杰恩斯的快乐和悲伤面孔的嵌合面孔对71例可能患有AD的患者进行面部表情识别测试。
AD患者识别正面和负面面部表情的能力基本得以保留。27%的患者存在面部表情识别受损。测试表现不佳与结构性实践和非言语记忆任务得分较低相关。
面部表情的情感解码似乎因患者的神经心理学特征不同而受到不同影响，因为测试表现不佳与非言语认知障碍密切相关。这种情绪辨别障碍可能是一部分以右侧半球功能障碍为主的AD患者行为的特征。保留处理面部情感特征的能力可能在痴呆患者的管理中发挥重要作用，并提示将非言语交流作为一种综合/替代系统使用。我们研究中使用的简单测试可能是探索痴呆患者情感行为的有用临床工具。
