Cognitive erosion and its implications in Alzheimer’s disease

Sammanfattning: The aim of the present thesis was twofold, first to map the semantic memory decline in Alzheimer patients over time, second to take the patient’s perspective and create a multifaceted picture of the individual with Alzheimer’s disease through the study of memory, awareness, central coherence and emotions. Further issues concerned how Alzheimer individuals handled their cognitive erosion in everyday life and if they were well calibrated with their spouse in disease related matters.Two studies were performed, the first involved a longitudinal study of sematic deterioration, the second had a mixed methods design involving both quantitative and qualitative measures as in neuropsychological assessment and interviews.Through the longitudinal study it could be concluded that the nature of semantic deterioration is best described as loss of memory information rather than problems in accessing the information. It was further concluded that semantic concepts gradually lose their specific features during course of illness.The results from the second study revealed that the Alzheimer individuals were aware of their disease although they could not foresee the implications of their cognitive shortcomings in their everyday life. They evidenced weak central coherence, in that they were unable to infer details into a meaningful whole. This implies that they perceive their surrounding world in a fragmented way as consisting of separate objects rather than a comprehensible context. Concerning emotions it was found that they responded to negatively valenced words in the same way as normal ageing individuals, although being impaired in their response to positively and neutral words. Finally, the Alzheimer individuals and their spouses were not well calibrated regarding disease related issues.The findings of the present thesis have important clinical implications and gives valuable input to the understanding of the individual with Alzheimer’s disease.