Differentiation of amnesic and demented patients with the wechsler memory scale -revised

Abstract

The Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R) was administered to 16 amnesic patients, 20 patients with Alzheimer's Disease, 24 patients with Huntington's Disease and 28 normal control subjects. The findings for the five memory indices demonstrated that the amnesics' General and Delayed Memory Indices (69 and 56, respectively) were more accurate estimates of their severe anterograde memory problems than was the single MQ from the original WMS. It was also noted that amnesic patients could be distinguished from demented patients and control subjects on the basis of the differences between the Attention/Concentration and General Memory Indices (AC-GM) and between the General and Delayed Memory Indices (GM-DM). Savings scores calculated for the Logical Memory and Visual Reproduction tests showed that both the amnesic and Alzheimer patients forgot verbal and figural materials more quickly than did the Huntington's patients and normal control subjects. When the amnesic group was divided according to presumed diencephalic or mesial temporal (i.e., hippocampal) lobe damage, both amnesic groups demonstrated lower savings and greater GM-DM scores than did normal control subjects. There were some indications that amnesics with mesial temporal damage forgot more rapidly than did those with diencephalic lesions.