Dementia and Memory

A negative effect of the ageing population is that more individuals are experiencing cognitive decline and some form of neurodegenerative disease. With the number of people experiencing dementia likely to double in the next 20 years, this change in society presents one of greatest challenges facing public health personnel in the 21st century. The aim of this volume is to describe research that is in progress, and the major findings that have been obtained in the scientific study of dementia.

The chapters in the first section of the book focus upon early signs of dementia, and consider several approaches to finding early cognitive signs and biological markers of dementia. The second section considers whether dementia is inevitable for people who become very old, and features chapters on risk factors and proactive influences, cognitive reserve and intervention. Each chapter in the final section describes phenomena which are related to differences in function between memory systems, including anterograde memory in fronto-temporal dementia, and the role semantic memory and semantic cognition may play in developing an understanding of the development of the degenerative processes in dementia.

With contributions from world-class researchers in this area, the volume offers a concise overview of key findings in recent research on dementia and memory. It will be of great interest to researchers and advanced students of cognitive psychology, and to those working in related fields, such as gerontology, rehabilitation sciences, and allied health.

1. Introduction: Is Alzheimer’s disease predictable long in advance on the basis of memory performance, L-G. NilssonPart 1: Early cognitive signs of dementia Introduction: L-G. Nilsson and N. Ohta 2. Mild cognitive impairment and the preclinical phase of dementia: Neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric aspects, K. Palmer, M. Musicco, and C. Caltagirone 3. Dissociations between losses of memory, intelligence and processing speed in old age, P. Rabbitt 4. Rationale of the Memory Binding Test, H. Buschke 5. Controlled Learning: from the Bench to the Clinic, E. Grober Part 2: Is dementia inevitable? Introduction, L.-G. Nilsson and N. Ohta 6. How do we measure cognitive function in the oldest old? A new framework for questionnaire assessment of dementia prevalence in centenarians, Y. Gondo, Y. Masui, H. Inagaki, and N. Hirose 7. A life-span approach to dementia, A. Herlitz and S. Dekhtyar 8. Cognitive Reserve: From Theory To Intervention, Y. Stern Part 3: Memory systems and dementia Introduction, L.-G. Nilsson and N. Ohta 9. Anterograde Memory in Frontotemporal Dementia, J. R. Hodges, M. Hornberger, and O. Piguet 10. Retrograde amnesia in dementia and memory disorders: are we any nearer an understanding? M. D. Kopelman 11. Language disorders in neurodegenerative disease: Insights into the organisation of semantic memory and language in the human brain, K. Patterson 12. Differential impairments of semantic cognition in progressive vs. stroke-related aphasias, M. A. Lambon Ralph 13. The neural basis of semantic memory, M. Bonner and M. Grossman 14. Word-Stem Completion Priming in Alzheimer's Disease, D. P. Salmon and W. C. Heindel

Lars-Göran Nilsson is Professor of Psychology at Stockholm University, Sweden. His research concerns the development of cognitive functions across the life span, in particular the development of memory. Within the Betula Project he has conducted a longitudinal study of how memory develops in adulthood and old age, and within the project Brain Child at Stockholm Brain Institute he has been engaged in research on how memory develops in children and teenagers.

Nobuo Ohta is Professor of Psychology at Gakushuin University, Japan. His research interests are in the psychology of memory, cognition and learning, especially in implicit memory. Topics of ongoing work include life span memory development, false memory and amnesia.