Retrograde memory in cerebrovascular disease and Alzheimer's disease.

Retrograde memory is frequently tested in the mental status examination of patients with stroke or degenerative dementia. The goal of this experiment was to compare gradients of retrograde memory in patients without neurologic disease (n = 26), patients with cerebrovascular disease (n = 43), and patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (n = 27). Patients were asked to recall and then name photographs of the 6 most recent US presidents.

Constructional ability in two- versus three-dimensions: relationship to spatial vision and locus of cerebrovascular lesion.

Introduction: Clinical evaluation and research on constructional ability have come to rely almost exclusively on two-dimensional tasks such as graphomotor copying or mosaic Block Design (BD). A return to the inclusion of a third dimension in constructional tests may increase the spatial demands of the task, and improve understanding of the relationship between visual perception and constructional ability in patients with cerebral disease.

Method: Subjects were patients (n=43) with focal or multifocal cerebrovascular lesions as determined by CT or MRI.