Picture memory ability and related factors of the middle-aged and elderly population in Huaian city

Zhenghong LU; Qihao GUO

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:

Human memory is significantly correlated with recognition. When recognition begins to decrease, a decrease in memory appears first. How about the memory of rural population?

OBJECTIVE:

To investigate the picture memory related factors of the rural households who are over 50 years old.

SETTING:

Department of Geriatrics,Huaian First Hospital,Nanjing Medical University;Department of Neurology, Huashan Hospital,Fudan University.

PARTICIPANTS:

Totally 50 rural inpatients at the Department of Geriatrics,Huaian First Hospital Nanjing Medical University,who would be recovered and out of charge,were selected from March 2003 to February2004. Meanwhile, 11 relatives of the patients and 55 healthy elderly people from Dingji Town,Huaiyin District, were also included.All the participants were over 50 years old.

METHODS:

Employing questionnaire,mini-mental state examination,auditory-verbal learning test (AVLT), pictorial learning test and many nonmemory tests were performed. According to the levels of education,participants were divided into illiterate group,primary school group,junior middle school group and higher than junior middle school group.The correlation of picture memory ability with sex,age,educational level and simple intelligence test was compared. And the interactions among variables of picture memory were also investigated.MAIN OUTCOME

MEASURES:

The relationships between the variablesof picture memory and age, sex, educational level and simple intelligence of rural households in Huaian city were calculated. And the interactions among these variables were all investigated.

RESULTS:

Practically, 103 participants entered the statistical analysis proage,sex,educational level and simple intelligenceExcept for recurring figures, all the other variables of picture memory had positive correlations with simple intelligence and educational level (r=0.197-0.533, P ＜ 0.05-0.01).Among them, immediate memory showed the closest correlation with simple intelligence (r=0.533).Delayed recall memory of pictures, recurring figures,and serial memory 4 (the number of recalled pictures in the last 4 pictures in delayed recall test) had negative correlation with age (r=-0.194 to -0.324,P ＜ 0.05-0.01),among them, serial memory of 4 pictures had the closest correlation with age (r=-0.324),while, all the other variables were not related to age. All the variables of picture memory were not linked to sex. Recurring pictures was not linked to educational level 1 (period of education0-11 years),2 (education level illiterate, primary school, junior middle interactions among these variablesRecurring figures was not linked to serial memory 2 (the number of recalled pictures in the last 4 pictures in immediate memory test),serial memory 1 (the number of recalled pictures in the first4 pictures in immediate memory test) was not related to serial memory 2 and serial memory 4.Except for these cases, variables of picture memory had significant correlations with each other (r =0.206-0.855 ,P ＜ 0.05-0.01),and delayed recall memory of pictures had the closest relationship with conceptual memory 2 (r=0.855).

CONCLUSION:

Picture memory capacity of middle aged and elderly rural households is not linked to sex, while it is correlated with age,educational level and intelligence.