Muted emotions misleading in Alzheimer's disease

August, 2010

Indications that blunted emotions are part of Alzheimer’s are a warning not to assume that reduced emotional response is a sign of depression.

A small study suggests that the apathy shown by many Alzheimer's patients may not simply be due to memory or language problems, but to a decreased ability to experience emotions. The seven patients were asked to rate pictures of positive and negative scenes (such as babies and spiders) by putting a mark closer or further to either a happy face or a sad face emoticon. Closeness to the face indicated the strength of the emotion felt. Although most of the time the Alzheimer’s patients placed their mark in the appropriate direction, they did make more inappropriate choices than the control group, and typically also gave less intense judgments.

Both comprehension problems and depression were ruled out. A lower emotional response may result from damage to brain areas that produce neurotransmitters, which typically occurs early in Alzheimer’s. It may be that medication to replace or increase these neurotransmitters would improve emotional experience.

This finding is a warning that apathy should not be automatically taken to mean that the patient is depressed. The researchers, enabled by the small size of the study, tested more thoroughly for depression than is usually the case in large studies. It may be that in these studies, this apathy has often been confounded with depression — which may explain the inconsistencies in the research into depression and Alzheimer’s (see the news item just previous to this).

The finding may also help caregivers understand that any emotional indifference is not ‘personal’.

Reference: 

[1674] Drago, V., Foster P. S., Chanei L., Rembisz J., Meador K., Finney G., et al.
(2010).  Emotional Indifference in Alzheimer's Disease.
J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci. 22(2), 236 - 242.

Related News

In the past few months, several studies have come out showing the value of three different tests of people's sense of smell for improving the accuracy of

A study comparing the language abilities of 22 healthy young individuals, 24 healthy older individuals and 22 people with

Following on from a previous study showing that such a virtual supermarket game administered by a trained professional can detect

Data from the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study, involving 6,467 postmenopausal women (65+) who reported some level of caffeine consumption, has found that those who consumed above average amounts of coffee had a lower risk of developing dementia.

Our bodies’ ability to regulate its temperature gets worse with age, along with a slowing metabolism. We also become more vulnerable to Alzheimer's as we age. A study compared mice genetically engineered to manifest Alzheimer's symptoms as they age with normal mice.

People with Alzheimer's disease develop problems in recognizing familiar faces. It has been thought that this is just part of their general impairment, but a new study indicates that a specific, face-related impairment develops early in the disease.

Data from 876 patients (average age 78) in the 30-year Cardiovascular Health Study show that virtually any type of aerobic physical activity can improve brain volume and reduce Alzheimer's risk.

A study involving 100 older adults (aged 80-99) with hearing loss has found that those who used a hearing aid performed significantly better on a cognitive test (MMSE) than those who didn't use a hearing aid, despite having poorer hearing.

A study involving 65 older adults (average age 66), of whom 35 had type 2 diabetes, has found that after two years, those with diabetes had decreases in their ability to regulate blood flow in the brain, and a reduced ability to regulate blood flow was associated with lower cognitive scores.

A small study that fitted 29 young adults (18-31) and 31 older adults (55-82) with a device that recorded steps taken and the vigor and speed with which they were made, has found that those older adults with a higher step rate performed better on memory tasks than those who were more sedentary.

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news
Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.