An Autobiographical Memory Task to Assess Dementia

Patients often express concern that their memory deficits signal early Alzheimer disease — a concern that often is shared by their families. Investigators from the Alzheimer Disease Research Center at Washington University (St. Louis) assessed whether a brief “autobiographical memory task” is useful in assessing such patients.

The task is performed as follows: While the patient is absent, the clinician asks the patient's companion to describe two non-everyday events in which the patient recently participated (for example, shopping trips, medical visits, parties, etc.); one event is from the past week, the other is from the past month. Next, during the clinician's session with the patient, the clinician asks open-ended questions to elicit the…