Prospective memory tasks: a more sensitive method for screening cognitive impairment in ALS?

Abstract

BackgroundCognitive change is prevalent in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but still lack a widely accepted and sensitive screening method. In this study, we try to find a sensitive screening battery for detecting subtle cognitive deficits in patients with ALS.MethodsEighty consecutive ALS patients and 57 matched normal controls underwent the Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE), the verbal fluency test (VFT), the Stroop Color Word Interference Test (CWT), and the prospective memory (PM) tests, including event-based (EBPM) and time-based (TBPM).ResultsThe patients did not differ from the controls in the MMSE, the VFT and the CWT. By contrast, statistically significant differences were found in the PM tests (EBPM: P=0.043; TBPM: P<0.001). More interestingly, TBPM was more sensitive than EBPM in the early-phase patients.ConclusionsPrefrontal lobar dysfunction does exist among ALS patients and may spread from the medial to the lateral region. The PM tests seem more sensitive in ALS patients with frontotemporal dysfunction than are the classical cognitive measures.

Screening for cognitive and behavioural impairment in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: frequency of abnormality and effect on survival

“…Previously, some studies have found that people with bulbar onset of ALS are more likely to have cognitive impairment than those with spinal onset [39,53,54], but others do not [33,35,55]. In our study, the site of onset had no effect of the presence of cognitive impairment as determined by the ACE-III, but site of onset influenced cognitive impairment based on FAB logistic regression results.…”

Effects of bilateral repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on prospective memory in patients with schizophrenia: A double‐blind randomized controlled clinical trial

“…The PM assessment paradigm is derived from the standard Chinese version of the PM test designed by Einstein and McDaniel 50,51 . The details of this paradigm have been described previously 52 . We revised some details according to the actual situation of schizophrenic patients to facilitate the subject's operation.…”

“… 50 , 51 The details of this paradigm have been described previously. 52 We revised some details according to the actual situation of schizophrenic patients to facilitate the subject's operation. The test was divided into two parts to assess TBPM and EBPM, respectively.…”

My memories are important to me: Changes in autobiographical memory in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

“…Memory dysfunction in ALS has been associated with the impaired integrity of core brain structures, including the hippocampus(Raaphorst et al, 2015), fornix (Sarro et al, 2011) and uncinate fasciculus (Christidi et al, 2014). Impaired prospective memory (Ji, Wei, Chui, Wang, & Fan, 2012), working memory (Hammer, Vielhaber, Rodriguez-Fornells, Mohammadi, & Munte, 2011) and recall of emotionally salient material (Cuddy, Papps, Thambisetty, Leigh, & Goldstein, 2012; Papps, Abrahams, Wicks, Leigh, & Goldstein, 2005) have also been identified in ALS. However, no studies to date have investigated personally relevant memory recall in ALS.…”