Flicker C, Ferris S H, Crook T, Reisberg B, Bartus R T
Dept. Psychiatry, NYU Medical Center, NY 10016.
J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 1988 Aug;10(4):387-99. doi: 10.1080/01688638808408247.
Two tests of spatial-rotation ability were administered to 17 young normals, 23 aged normals, and 51 patients with diagnoses of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The AD patients consisted of 28 early dementia patients and 23 advanced dementia patients. On a computerized version of the Boston Naming Test, 40 objects were presented for naming, 20 of which were rotated 180 degrees. The subjects' capacity for mental rotation was assessed on the basis of their accuracy of naming of rotated vs. unrotated objects. On Money's Standardized Road Map Test, in which the subject is asked whether turns on a map are to the left or to the right, spatial-rotation ability was assessed on the basis of the subject's left-right orientation on turns with movement away from the subject (requiring no rotation) vs. turns with movement toward the subject (requiring rotation). Performance on both tasks was progressively worse in the young normal, aged normal, early dementia, and advanced dementia groups. Both tasks demonstrated a clear spatial-rotation deficit in the elderly. Although the spatial-rotation effect was superimposed upon deficits in naming and left-right orientation in the demented subjects, the magnitude of the rotation effect did not significantly differ in the aged normal vs. the early dementia group on either task, suggesting that early AD produces no further impairment of spatial-rotation abilities than is produced by normal aging.
对17名年轻正常人、23名老年正常人以及51名被诊断为阿尔茨海默病（AD）的患者进行了两项空间旋转能力测试。AD患者包括28名早期痴呆患者和23名晚期痴呆患者。在波士顿命名测试的计算机化版本中，呈现40个物体供命名，其中20个物体旋转了180度。根据受试者对旋转物体与未旋转物体命名的准确性来评估其心理旋转能力。在莫尼标准化路线图测试中，要求受试者判断地图上的转弯是向左还是向右，根据受试者在远离受试者的转弯（不需要旋转）与朝向受试者的转弯（需要旋转）时的左右方向来评估空间旋转能力。在年轻正常人、老年正常人、早期痴呆和晚期痴呆组中，两项任务的表现都逐渐变差。两项任务均显示老年人存在明显的空间旋转缺陷。尽管在痴呆患者中，空间旋转效应叠加在命名和左右方向缺陷之上，但在任何一项任务中，老年正常组与早期痴呆组的旋转效应大小均无显著差异，这表明早期AD导致的空间旋转能力损害并不比正常衰老更严重。
