Clinical Study Working Memory and the Enactment Effect in Early Alzheimer's Disease. Charlesworth, L., A., Allen, R., J., Morson, S., Burn, W., K., & Souchay, C.
Clinical Study Working Memory and the Enactment Effect in Early Alzheimer's Disease [pdf]Paper  abstract   bibtex   
This study examines the enactment effect in early Alzheimer's disease using a novel working memory task. Free recall of action-object instruction sequences was measured in individuals with Alzheimer's disease (í µí±› = 14) and older adult controls (í µí±› = 15). Instruction sequences were read out loud by the experimenter (verbal-only task) or read by the experimenter and performed by the participants (subject-performed task). In both groups and for all sequence lengths, recall was superior in the subject-performed condition than the verbal-only condition. Individuals with Alzheimer's disease showed a deficit in free recall of recently learned instruction sequences relative to older adult controls, yet both groups show a significant benefit from performing actions themselves at encoding. The subject-performed task shows promise as a tool to improve working memory in early Alzheimer's disease.

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