Rating of different olfactory judgements in Alzheimer's disease.

Using simple successive tasks we assessed the influence of Alzheimer's disease on the processing of different odours. Fifteen patients with Alzheimer's disease, 15 old control subjects and 15 young control subjects were tested. The experiment included two sessions. Initially 12 odorants were presented, one odorant every minute. For each odour the subjects were asked to rate intensity, pleasantness, familiarity and edibility using linear rating scales. The odorants were then presented a second time and the subjects were asked to identify them. The results show that the intensity scores were lower in old control subjects and Alzheimer patients than in the young control subjects and that familiarity and identification scores were lower in Alzheimer patients than in old control and young control subjects. When we compared the five olfactory tasks the impairment of performance in Alzheimer patients was relatively higher for identification than familiarity, itself higher than the intensity judgement. No difference was observed between the three groups of subjects for pleasantness and edibility judgements.

[Group memory therapy in neurologic amnesia]. / Groupe d'entraînement de la mémoire dans les amnésies neurologiques.

The aim of our approach was to improve the memory of head injured memory impaired people without associated intellectual deterioration. Subjects participated in group each weekday during ten weeks. The aim of strategies was to help the patient of recovery learning strategies. Exercises can be repeated to produce the use of learning strategies in the real life. 19 patients (11 subjects with a traumatic brain injury and 8 subjects with a cerebral vascular accident) completed the treatment are measured before and after the rehabilitation. In a clinic study our memory therapy was more satisfactory on visual memory than verbal memory on a French standardised memory test (the Signoret memory battery). But there is no change in the evaluation of everyday memory measured with the AMQ of Van Der Linden. The comparison of the two sub groups has given to show which pathology will benefit the more the method. These first findings suggested that it was useful to reinforce everyday memory and to include the family members more. It will also be interesting to modify the program for the reeducation of the verbal memory. A control study was necessary to evaluate the validity of our approach.

[Amnesic syndrome of posterior cerebral ischemia]. / Le syndrome amnésique des ischémies cérébrales postérieures.

30 patients with acute onset of memory disturbances and visual impairment (cortical blindness or hemianopsia) are reported. For all of them, there was evidence of posterior cerebral artery ischemia. This clinical syndrome is compared with Dide and Botcazo's case report. The amnesia never recovered in 17 patients and was transient in 13 patients: in 4 of them it occurred during vertebral angiography and in 4 during general anaesthesia with anoxia. The main clinical features of the syndrome and the related bibliography are reviewed.