Handbook on the Neuropsychology of Aging and Dementia
This book offers practitioners a hands-on guide to bedrock clinical tasks. The first half of the volume addresses special considerations for conducting neuropsychological assessments of older adults, such as disease management issues, sleep concerns,
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Taylor Kuhn and Russell M. Bauer
Abstract
In its most pure form, the human amnesic syndrome involves a disabling impairment in new learning accompanied by some degree of impairment in aspects of remote memory in the context of relatively normal intellectual ability, language, and attention span. Neuropsychological research has clearly shown that lesions within the brain’s extended memory system (medial temporal lobe, diencephalon, and basal forebrain) produce anterograde amnesia while leaving other aspects of memory (retrieval of general knowledge, vocabulary, names) relatively intact. The episodic–semantic distinction has been useful in explaining key characteristics of the human amnesic syndrome. This chapter provides a framework for characterizing the distinction between “episodic” and “semantic” memory, and discusses the clinical features and assessment of disordered function in each of these two domains. Keywords
Episodic memory • Semantic memory • Amnesia • Memory systems • Neurobehavioral assessment
It has been nearly five decades since the famous patient H.M., who represents a paradigmatic case of the human amnesic syndrome, was first described in the literature. In its most pure form, the human amnesic syndrome involves a disabling
T. Kuhn, M.S. • R.M. Bauer, Ph.D., ABPP () Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, PO Box 100165 HSC, Gainesville, FL 32610-1065, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
impairment in new learning accompanied by some degree of impairment in aspects of remote memory in the context of relatively normal intellectual ability, language, and attention span. The hallmark feature, anterograde amnesia, involves “recent” memory; the essential feature of the deficit is that the patient is impaired in the conscious, deliberate recall of information initially learned after illness onset. In cases where remote memory is impaired (retrograde amnesia), the deficit is often temporally graded or time-limited and is generally worse for memories acquired in
L.D. Ravdin and H.L. Katzen (eds.), Handbook on the Neuropsychology of Aging and Dementia, Clinical Handbooks in Neuropsychology, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-3106-0_25, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2013
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T. Kuhn and R.M. Bauer
402 Table 25.1 Diseases and problems producing disorders of episodic and semantic memory Disorders of episodic memory Alzheimer’s disease (early) Amnesic mild cognitive impairment Stroke (PCA, thalamic perforators) Aneurysm rupture/repair (ACoA) Cerebral anoxia Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome Herpes simplex and HSV-6 encephalitis Autoimmune limbic encephalitis Traumatic brain injury Transient global amnesia (TGA) Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) Dissociative (psychogenic) amnesia
Disorders of semantic memory Alzheimer’s disease (mid/late) Semantic dementia Herpes simplex encephalitis Neurosyphilis Stroke (MCA, PCA, cortical) Focal retrograde amnesia Dissociative (psychogenic) amnesia
recent time periods than it is for memories acquired in the very remote past. N
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