Indicadores de Gestión Responsabilidad Social

G eneral Predictions w ith Respect to the R esearch Populations

The normal elderly and Alzheimer’s disease research participants were selected to form

closely matched populations with respect to the demographic characteristics o f age,

sex, education, occupational background and pre-morbid intellectual abilities. It was

therefore predicted that variability both between and within the two groups in

cognitive and semantic performance would reflect the influence of;

• the presence o f dementia o f the Alzheimer type (between groups effect)

• advancing age (within Control group effect)

• advancing severity o f dementia (within DAT group effect)

• the heterogeneity in patterns o f deterioration which has been documented as a

characteristic feature o f Alzheimer-type dementia (within DAT group effect)

Proceeding on the basis o f these premises, a number o f specific research hypotheses

were raised with respect to the performance o f the Control and DAT groups on the

tests comprising the research protocol.

P redictions w ith R espect to the Perform ance of the C ontrol Subjects

The Control subjects were expected to achieve high levels o f accuracy on all the

research tests comprising the Standard Measures Batterv for Cognitive and Language

Function and the Experimental Batterv for Semantic Processing - with any

Predictions w ith R espect to the Perform ance of the DAT P articip ants

Given that individuals with dementia o f the Alzheimer type are known to

experience difficulties on tests o f cognitive processing which involve memory, fluency,

naming and the comprehension o f lower frequency lexical items, it was expected that

the people with DAT would demonstrate significant decrements in relation to the

Control subjects on the following standardised cognitive measures:

• level o f orientation to time, place and events (CAPE Orientation Test)

• independence in functional activities (CAPE Physical Disability Scale)

• the comprehension o f low frequency vocabulary (British Picture Vocabulary Scale)

• the free recall o f nouns belonging to semantic categories (Set Test)

It was also predicted that the people with DAT may demonstrate deficits in

performance in relation to the Control subjects on the Pvramids and Palm Trees Test, a

semantic test which requires the individual to infer semantic associations between

pictured nouns.

Further significant decrements in performance on the same cognitive measures were

expected to emerge between the four subgroups o f dementia severity (Very Mild,

It was also predicted that at retest, the progression o f dementia with time would be

reflected in a decrement in the performance o f the people with DAT on the

standardised screening measures relating to orientation (CAPE Orientation Test) and

level o f functional dependence (CAPE Physical Disability Scale).

P redictions w ith R espect to th e E xperim ental B atterv for Sem antic Processing

Having established that the people with DAT would experience significant deficits

in performance on cognitive measures on which normally ageing subjects would

perform without significant difficulty, hypotheses were raised with respect to the

performance o f the people with DAT on the tests o f lexical semantic processing.

• Hvpotheses with Respect to the Recognition bv Unique Feature Test

This semantic test focused on the ability o f individuals with dementia to utilise

information which is known to native speakers o f the English language, about very

specific identifying attributes or “unique features” o f everyday objects.

The hypothesis was raised that the people with DAT would demonstrate the ability to

use such unique feature information to distinguish target nouns from amongst other

distractor nouns with varying strengths o f semantic association with the target.

It was therefore predicted that each o f the DAT severity subgroups would achieve

their best relative performance in relation to the Control baseline on the Recognition by

Unique Feature tests, therefore demonstrating the accessibility o f knowledge within

semantic memory o f individual concepts and specific identifying features associated

• Hvpotheses with Respect to the Recognition bv Category Test

Recent conceptualisations o f the breakdown o f semantic knowledge in Alzheimer-type

dementia suggest that patients maintain success on tests o f superordinate category

knowledge, in preference to their performance on tests o f subordinate knowledge or

specific feature attributes, which may be vulnerable to earlier loss.

In this research it was predicted that the people with DAT may demonstrate less

success on the Recognition bv Categorv tests which required them to infer noun

associations based on membership o f a common semantic category.

This test was relatively unguided in contrast to the Recognition bv Unique Feature test

in which very specific attribute information was provided to guide and facilitate

successful noun recognition.

• Hvpotheses with Respect to Modalitv o f Presentation

The additional factor o f modality o f stimulus presentation was introduced by

presenting each o f the two semantic recognition tests in both picture and written form.

It was predicted that the people with DAT should demonstrate success levels which

did not differ significantly between the picture and written presentations o f the

Recognition bv Unique Feature tests, confirming successful access to lexical

• Hvpotheses with Respect to Lexical Production

Impairments in both confrontation naming and generative naming skills are early

identifying features o f DAT. It was therefore expected that the people with DAT

would be significantly impaired in relation to the Control group in their performance

on the Picture Naming and Generative Naming tests, and that performance between

the GDS severity subgroups would decline significantly as a reflection o f advancing

clinical decline.

It was also predicted that the people with DAT may show further decline in naming

and generative naming skills at retest, in association with advancing duration o f

disease.

Following on from the expectation that the people with DAT would be able to utilise

specific feature cues to facilitate noun recognition, it was hypothesised that the ability

to name the same set o f sixty target nouns in the Picture Naming Test would be

facilitated by presentation o f the unique feature attributes in the form o f spoken

semantic cues.

Furthermore, if recognition and naming performance could be demonstrated to be

upheld at retest, despite measurable decline in cognitive and functional performance,

therefore the ability to utilise semantic cueing information could be presumed to be

With respect to the Generative Naming Test, it was expected that the people with

DAT would demonstrate significant decrements in relation to the Control baseline with

respect to both the number and variety o f nouns recalled.

However, the accompanying hypothesis was also raised that a ‘core vocabulary’ o f

nouns may be identified in the responses o f the DAT participants at initial test and at

retest, suggesting the functional maintenance o f aspects o f lexical knowledge despite