They evidenced weak central coherence, in that they were unable to infer details into a meaningful whole. 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. It was further concluded that semantic concepts gradually lose their specific features during course of illness. 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. 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. 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. 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. Medical and Health Sciences Research subject SAB, V Medicine Identifiers URN: urn:nbn:se:vti:diva-6917 DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1673-5374.2013.08.011 ISI: 000317029900011 OAI: oai::vti-6917 DiVA, id: diva2:723324Ģ013 (English) Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic) Alternative title Kognitiv erosion och dess betydelse vid Alzheimers sjukdom Medical aspects, Cognition, Dementia National Category Place, publisher, year, edition, pages2013. The findings have important clinical implications for the understanding of patients with Alzheimer’s diseaseand also for the possibility of caregivers to meet the Alzheimer’s disease individual in an appropriate way in the everyday care. In conclusion, patients with Alzheimer’s disease are at the weak end of central coherence, and hence suffer from a fragmented view of their surroundings. Compared to control subjects, the Alzheimer’s disease patients described the picture in a fragmented way by mentioning details and separate objects without perceiving the context of the fire. Nine Alzheimer’s disease patients and ten age- and gender-matched control subjects, who differed significantly in neurological assessment, were shown a picture of a fire.
The main purpose of the present study was to examine central coherence in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. To date, the concept of central coherence is mainly used in research of autism, Asperger’s syndrome and recently in the research on eating disorders. 760-766 Article in journal (Refereed) Published Abstract Ĭentral coherence refers to the ability to interpret details of information into a whole.
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