Self-Consciousness Deficits in Alzheimer's Disease and Frontotemporal Dementia.

Self-consciousness (SC) is multifaceted and considered to be the consciousness of one's own mental states. The main aim of this paper is to compare SC in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Three groups (control and patient groups) of 23 subjects each were assessed using an SC questionnaire. Both types of dementia clearly induce an alteration of SC. The bvFTD group showed a greater impairment in SC than the AD and control groups. The SC score was strongly associated with frontal functions. The most significantly impaired SC aspects in the bvFTD group were Anosognosia, Introspection, and Moral Judgments. For the AD group, the significantly impaired aspects of SC were Anosognosia and Prospective Memory. The differences in SC between the AD and bvFTD groups were essentially centered on the Anosognosia, Moral Judgments, and Introspection aspects, which were highly impaired in the bvFTD patients. This suggests that SC is related to orbito-frontal functioning and thus, to the default mode network.

[Proceeding memory in Alzheimer's disease]. / Memoria procedimental en pacientes con enfermedad de Alzheimer.

Procedural learning can acquire or develop skills through performance and repetition of a task unconsciously or unintentionally. Procedural skills are considered as the cornerstone in the neuropsychological rehabilitation to promote the autonomy of patients with brain damage, as those with Alzheimer's disease. This review presents data about procedural skills in Alzheimer's disease. Over the past three decades, we have found 40 articles studying various procedural skills in the Alzheimer's disease: motor, perceptual-motor, cognitive, perceptual-cognitive and those developed through serial reaction-time paradigm. We analyzed every study evaluating a procedural skill, indicating the used task and preservation or no preservation of procedural learning. Overall, most of the papers published describe conservation of learning procedures or relatively conserved in Alzheimer's disease, which could be used to promote patient autonomy.

El aprendizaje procedimental permite adquirir o desarrollar habilidades mediante la ejecución y repetición de una tarea de manera no consciente o no intencional. Las habilidades procedimentales están siendo consideradas ejes centrales en la rehabilitación neuropsicológica para fomentar la autonomía de los pacientes con daño cerebral. En este artículo se hace una revisión del estado actual de las investigaciones que analizan los aprendizajes procedimentales en la enfermedad de Alzheimer. De las últimas tres décadas se identificaron 40 investigaciones relativas a las habilidades procedimentales en la enfermedad de Alzheimer: motoras, perceptivo-motoras, cognitivas, perceptivo-cognitivas y las desarrolladas mediante el paradigma del tiempo de reacción serial. En cada una se han analizado los estudios que evalúan la habilidad, el tipo de tarea utilizada y los resultados que reflejan la preservación o el deterioro del aprendizaje procedimental. Los aprendizajes procedimentales preservados o relativamente preservados en los pacientes con enfermedad de Alzheimer podrían ser utilizados para fomentar la autonomía de estos.