Differences in Episodic Memory between Patients with Alzheimer's Disease and Normally Aging Individuals

There are numerous problems associated with a greater prevalence of old age, one of which is dementia. The prevalence of dementia increases year by year, and patients with Alzheimer's disease account for the largest proportion of patients with dementia. In early stages of Alzheimer's disease patients have significant episodic memory impairment. An experiment was conducted to explore the differences in episodic memory performance between patients with Alzheimer's disease and normal aging. In the experiment, participants carried out a place-object word pair recall task. Different consistency of word pairs and delays before recall was allowed were investigated. Overall, Alzheimer's disease patients showed impairments in episodic memory performance. The results showed better performance for consistent word pairs, and for immediate recall. Based on these results, we offer some suggestions for auxiliary devices and cognitive therapies that might be used in the future for patients with Alzheimer's disease.