A Comparative Study of Attentional Deficits in Senile Dementias of Alzheimer and Lewy Body Types

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Abstract
Most neuropsychological studies of senile dementia, including Alzheimer's type (SD AT) and Lewy body type (SDLT), have investigated mnemonic deficiencies. In this study, we compared and contrasted attentional ability in two (SDAT, SDLT) groups of patients in equivalently mild stages of dementia. Based on evidence from previous autopsy material, it was predicted that SDLT patients would have especially severe attentional deficits, reflecting the nigrostriatal dopaminergic degeneration associated with this form of dementia. Both groups were impaired, compared to the control, on an attentional set-shifting task. The SDLT group's visual search matching-to-sample performance was, however, worse than that seen in SDAT patients (who performed at nearly control levels). We conclude that there are quantitative and, more importantly, qualitative differences between SDAT and SDLT in terms of cognitive dysfunction, the latter group's attentional deficiencies resembling those reported for Parkinson's disease.

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