PROPER NAMES IN AGING: RELATIONSHIP WITH COGNITIVE RESERVE
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1
University of Padua, Department of General Psychology, Italy
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2
University of Padua, Human Inspired Technology research-centre, Italy
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3
University of Padua, Department of Neurosciences, Italy
BACKGROUND
Experiences made from childhood to adulthood shape our cognitive system, resulting in a protective factor for the cognitive status of the elderly. People with high Cognitive Reserve (CR) tolerate greater age-related brain impairment than people with low CR before clinical signs can be detected (Stern, 2009). They may show no impairment in complex neuropsychological tests although experiencing difficulties in everyday life. Some tasks, however, seem to detect symptoms of very early dementia; naming proper names is one of them (Semenza et al., 2003).
This study aims at investigating the relationship between CR and proper name retrieval in the elderly, and our hypothesis is that the ability to retrieve proper names is independent from the level of CR.
METHODS
Thirty-two consecutive patients undergoing their first neuropsychological assessment took part in the study. The group included 14 females and 18 males (mean age 75; SD=6.4; range: 59-86 years) with a mean education of 9 years (SD=4.6). They underwent a neuropsychological battery of tests including the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA, Nasreddine et al., 2006), the Famous Face Naming Test (requiring to name a series of 16 pictures of very famous people, performed close to ceiling by the Italian population; Semenza et al., 2003) to evaluate the ability to retrieve proper names, and the CRIq (Nucci et al., 2012) to measure their cognitive reserve. The CRIq is a semi-structured interview asking patients for information on their activities in adult life, combining education, working activities and leisure-time activities. In case of patients' severe cognitive decline, their caregivers can be interviewed instead.
RESULTS
Patients obtained a mean MoCA score of 18.5/30 (SD=5; range: 8-27); a mean score of 8.2/16 (SD=4.1; range: 1-16) at the Famous Face Naming Test; and showed a mean of 105 at the CRIq (SD=22; range: 67-149). While the correlation between CRIq and MoCA was significant (Pearson’s r= 0.54; p=0.001; see Figure 1), the correlation between CRIq and Famous Face Naming Test was very low (Pearson’s r=0.09; p=0.62; see Figure 2). A similar pattern was found when considering CRIq sub-scores separately (i.e. CRI-Education, CRI-Working-time and CRI-Leisure-time). CRIq sub-scores correlated with MoCA (Education: r=.34, p=.05; Working activities: r=.42, p=.01; Leisure time: r=.54, p=.001), but did not correlate with the Famous Face Naming Test (Education: r=.002, p=.99; Working activities: r=.09, p=.62; Leisure time: r=.10, p=.58).
CONCLUSIONS
Cognitive reserve is a crucial element to be considered when making an accurate initial diagnosis of patients’ cognitive decline. Our results show that CR correlates with a measure of the global cognitive status, but does not correlate with the Famous Face Naming Test. Patients often failed in retrieving proper names even when their CRIq was high and their score at the MoCA was above cut-off.
Proper names are relatively meaningless and poorly connected (Cohen, 1990; for a review see Semenza, 2009) with any of the semantic brain networks of our world knowledge, possibly the most important component of CR. This could explain difficulty in naming famous faces even in patients with very mild decline and very high CR.
References
Cohen, G. (1990). Why is it difficult to put names to faces? British Journal of Psychology, 81(3), 287-297.
Fratiglioni, L., Paillard-Borg, S., & Winblad, B. (2004). An active and socially integrated lifestyle in late life might protect against dementia. The Lancet Neurology, 3(6), 343-353.
Mondini, S. & Semenza, C. (2016). Cognitive Reserve and Ageing. What does cognitive reserve protect in Ageing? Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2016.68.00041.
Nucci, M., Mapelli, D., & Mondini, S. (2012). Cognitive Reserve Index questionnaire (CRIq): a new instrument for measuring cognitive reserve. Aging clinical and experimental research, 24(3), 218-226.
Semenza, C. (2009). The neuropsychology of proper names. Mind & Language, 24, 4, 347-369.
Semenza, C., Mondini, S., Borgo, F., Pasini, M., & Sgaramella, M. T. (2003). Proper names in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease. Neurocase, 9(1), 63-69.
Stern, Y. (2009). Cognitive reserve. Neuropsychologia, 47(10), 2015-2028.
Keywords:
Proper names,
Cognitive Reserve,
cognitive decline,
Name retrieval,
early diagnosis of dementia
Conference:
Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting , Baltimore, United States, 5 Nov - 7 Nov, 2017.
Presentation Type:
oral presentation
Topic:
Aphasia
Citation:
Montemurro
S,
Mondini
S,
Nucci
M and
Semenza
C
(2019). PROPER NAMES IN AGING: RELATIONSHIP WITH COGNITIVE RESERVE.
Conference Abstract:
Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2017.223.00083
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Received:
18 Apr 2017;
Published Online:
25 Jan 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Sara Mondini, University of Padua, Department of General Psychology, Padova, 35131, Italy, sara.mondini@unipd.it