Onor Marialuisa, Trevisiol Marianna, Spano Mariangela, Aguglia Eugenio, Paradiso Sergio
Department of Clinical, Morphological and Technological Sciences-U.C.O. of Clinical Psychiatry-University of Trieste, Tireste, Italy.
J Nerv Ment Dis. 2010 Dec;198(12):891-5. doi: 10.1097/NMD.0b013e3181fe743e.
Consistent with the emotional changes associated with later life, higher alexithymia scores are widely reported in older adults, but their significance has not been fully examined. We posited that association between alexithymia and poorer neurocognition would support the deficit nature of alexithymia in later life. Widely used neurocognitive tests assessing the relative integrity of the left and right hemisphere functions were used to examine the extent to which alexithymia of older age is associated with poor left or right hemisphere functioning. Healthy community-dwelling volunteers (20 young and 20 elderly subjects) were studied with the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Neurocognitive competence was assessed using a neuropsychological battery measuring attention, language, memory, visuospatial abilities, and executive functions. Neurocognitive abilities were strongly age-related and indirectly correlated with alexithymia. Alexithymia total score appeared to be uniquely predicted by Raven Matrices and Rey's Figure Recall. These results support the deficit hypothesis alexithymia of older age.
与晚年相关的情绪变化一致，老年人中广泛报道了较高的述情障碍得分，但其重要性尚未得到充分研究。我们推测，述情障碍与较差的神经认知之间的关联将支持晚年述情障碍的缺陷本质。使用广泛用于评估左右半球功能相对完整性的神经认知测试，来检查老年述情障碍与左半球或右半球功能不良相关的程度。对健康的社区志愿者（20名年轻受试者和20名老年受试者）进行了20项多伦多述情障碍量表研究。使用一套测量注意力、语言、记忆、视觉空间能力和执行功能的神经心理测试来评估神经认知能力。神经认知能力与年龄密切相关，且与述情障碍间接相关。瑞文推理测验和雷氏图形回忆测验似乎能唯一预测述情障碍总分。这些结果支持了老年述情障碍的缺陷假说。
