O'Brien Timothy J, Wadley Virginia, Nicholas Anthony P, Stover Natividad P, Watts Ray, Griffith H Randall
Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
Arch Clin Neuropsychol. 2009 May;24(3):237-44. doi: 10.1093/arclin/acp029. Epub 2009 Jul 8.
Deficits in learning, memory, and executive functions are common cognitive sequelae of Parkinson's disease with dementia (PDD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD); however, the pattern of deficits within these populations is distinct. Hierarchical regression was used to investigate the contribution of two measures with executive function properties (Verbal Fluency and CLOX) on list-learning performance (CVLT-II total words learned) in a sample of 25 PDD patients and 25 matched AD patients. Executive measures were predictive of list learning in the PDD group after the contribution of overall cognition and contextual verbal learning was accounted for, whereas in the AD group the addition of executive measures did not add to prediction of variance in CVLT-II learning. These findings suggest that deficits in executive functions play a vital role in learning impairments in patients with PDD; however, for AD patients, learning difficulties appear relatively independent of executive dysfunction.
学习、记忆和执行功能障碍是帕金森病痴呆（PDD）和阿尔茨海默病（AD）常见的认知后遗症；然而，这些人群中的功能障碍模式是不同的。采用分层回归研究了25例PDD患者和25例匹配的AD患者样本中，两种具有执行功能特性的测量方法（言语流畅性和CLOX）对列表学习表现（CVLT-II所学总单词数）的贡献。在考虑了整体认知和情境言语学习的贡献后，执行功能测量方法可预测PDD组的列表学习，而在AD组中，增加执行功能测量方法并不能增加对CVLT-II学习方差的预测。这些发现表明，执行功能障碍在PDD患者的学习障碍中起着至关重要的作用；然而，对于AD患者，学习困难似乎相对独立于执行功能障碍。
