Quental Natália Bezerra Mota, Brucki Sonia Maria Dozzi, Bueno Orlando Francisco Amodeo
Post Graduate Student, Psychologist, Department of Psychobiology of the Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo SP, Brazil.
PhD, Psychologist, Department of Psychobiology of the Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo SP, Brazil.
Dement Neuropsychol. 2009 Jul-Sep;3(3):234-240. doi: 10.1590/S1980-57642009DN30300010.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most frequent cause of dementia, accounting for 55% of all cases. AD patients gradually lose functional capacity, manifesting deficits in attention, language, temporal and direction orientation, mood, socialization and visuospatial function. The visuospatial function entails identification of a stimulus and its location. AD patients can present deficits in visuo-spatial skills during initial stages of the disease, but in the course of clinical evolution this function can become severely impaired. One of the neuropsychological tests indicated to evaluate the visuospatial function is the VOSP (The Visual Object and Space Perception Battery).
The aim of this preliminary study was to detect visuospatial dysfunction in early AD patients using the VOSP, and assess its sensitivity in a Brazilian sample.
Controls outperformed AD patients on all neuropsychological evaluations, except the Corsi block tapping task and cancellation task-errors. The AD patients performed significantly worse on all object perception and two space perception (Number Location and Cube Analyses) subtests of the VOSP.
The AD patients demonstrated impaired visuospatial function in several aspects. The subtests of the VOSP were found to be sensitive for detecting this impairment in mild cases.
阿尔茨海默病（AD）是痴呆最常见的病因，占所有病例的55%。AD患者逐渐丧失功能能力，表现为注意力、语言、时间和方向定向、情绪、社交及视觉空间功能方面的缺陷。视觉空间功能包括对刺激及其位置的识别。AD患者在疾病初期可能出现视觉空间技能缺陷，但在临床进展过程中该功能可能会严重受损。用于评估视觉空间功能的神经心理学测试之一是VOSP（视觉物体和空间感知成套测验）。
本初步研究的目的是使用VOSP检测早期AD患者的视觉空间功能障碍，并评估其在巴西样本中的敏感性。
在所有神经心理学评估中，除了科西方块敲击任务和划消任务错误外，对照组的表现均优于AD患者。AD患者在VOSP的所有物体感知和两项空间感知（数字定位和方块分析）子测试中表现明显更差。
AD患者在多个方面表现出视觉空间功能受损。发现VOSP的子测试对检测轻度病例中的这种损伤很敏感。
