Objectives– To propose a neuropsychological study of the various aspects of self-consciousness (SC) in Alzheimer's disease. Methods– Forty-five patients with probable mild or moderate AD were includ...

The main objective of this paper is to examine the impact of familiar music on self-consciousness (SC) in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). For this purpose, two AD groups of 20 patients matched by age, educational level, gender, illness duration, and cognitive state were assessed using an SC questionnaire before and after music intervention. The SC questionnaire measured several aspects: personal identity, anosognosia, affective state, body representation, prospective memory, introspection and moral judgments. One AD group received familiar music stimulation and another AD group unfamiliar music stimulation over three months. The AD patients who received a familiar music intervention showed a stabilization or improvement in aspects of SC. By contrast, control AD group showed a deterioration of most of the SC aspects after unfamiliar music stimulation, except the SC aspects of body representation and affective state. Familiar music stimulation could be considered as an enhancer of SC in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Research has identified unique cultural factors contributing to dementia caregiving in Latin America but very few caregiver interventions have been systematically piloted and evaluated in this region. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a group cognitive–behavioral intervention in improving the mental health of dementia caregivers from Cali, Colombia. Sixty-nine caregivers of individuals with dementia were randomly assigned to the cognitive–behavioral intervention or an educational control condition, both spanning 8 weeks. Compared to controls, the treatment group showed higher satisfaction with life and lower depression and burden over the posttest and 3-month follow-ups although there was no effect of the condition on participants’ stress levels.

Alzheimer’s disease may compromise several musical competences, though no clear data is available in the scientific literature. Furthermore, music is capable of communicating basic emotions, but little is known about the emotional aspect of music in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. We present a systematic investigation of music processing in relation to extra-musical skills, in particular emotional skills in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. We tested 30 patients with mild or moderate Alzheimer’s disease and 30 control subjects. We essentially evaluated (a) musical competences, using the extra-linguistic test, Solfeggio test and the recognition test of musical emotions—elaborated by our research team—and the Seashore test, and (b) emotional capacities using emotional memory and emotional prosody tests—made by our research group. We significantly observed lower total results of every test assessing cognitive, emotional and music competences in Alzheimer’s disease patients than those in control subjects, but the score of musical emotion recognition test did not reach to a significant difference between the subjects groups. Our findings found a global impairment of music competences in Alzheimer patients with cognitive and emotional troubles. Nevertheless, the performances in the recognition test of musical emotions showed a trend towards a performance difference. We can suggest that Alzheimer’s disease currently presents an aphaso-agnoso-apractic-amusia syndrome.

Background: Discerning dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) from Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most common and challenging differential diagnoses at the memory clinic. Although the neuropsychiatric manifestations have been widely reported as one of the main key points in the differential diagnosis between these two diseases, to date no neuropsychiatric questionnaire has been specifically devised for this purpose. Methods: We administered the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) and the Columbia University Scale for Psychopathology in Alzheimer's Disease (CUSPAD) to a memory clinic sample of 80 patients with probable DLB and 85 age- and severity-matched patients with probable AD. Diagnosis of probable DLB was supported with a positive dopamine transporter SPECT scan. We examined the usefulness of these two neuropsychiatric tools designed for AD in the differential diagnosis between DLB and AD. We also investigated the correlations between psychotic symptoms and measures of cognitive and functional decline. Results: Auditory hallucinations were very specific of DLB and were usually preceded by visual hallucinations. Misinterpretation of real visual stimuli (illusions) was more frequent in DLB. Delusions were both quantitatively and qualitatively different between DLB and AD: delusional misidentifications were significantly more characteristic of DLB, while paranoid delusions did not show specificity for DLB. Conclusions: Neuropsychiatric tools are useful to discriminate DLB from AD. Hallucinations and delusions are not only more frequent in DLB than in AD but also have distinct qualitative characteristics and patterns of progression that can help clinicians to make a more accurate differential diagnosis.

Self-consciousness (SC) is multifaceted and considered to be the consciousness of one’s own mental states. The medial prefrontal cortex may play a critical role in SC. The main aim of this paper was to examine SC in patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, who are characterized more by changes in personal, social, and emotional conduct and loss of insight than by cognitive disturbances. Control and patient groups of 21 subjects each, matched by age, educational level, gender, and nationality were assessed using a SC questionnaire. It measures several aspects: Personal identity, Anosognosia, Affective state, Body representation, Prospective memory, Introspection, and Moral judgments. The most disturbed ones in patients were Anosognosia, Affective state, and Moral judgments, and the least disturbed aspects were awareness of identity and of body representation. No significant correlations were found between the SC score and any clinical or demographical characteristics. The core deficiency of SC in patients was related to behavioral SC aspects, which are more dependent on orbito-frontal functioning.