Visual memory impairment may be sign of Alzheimer's Disease

Main Category: Alzheimer's / Dementia
Article Date: 18 Jan 2005 - 6:00 PDT

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Poor visual memory (iconic memory) could be linked to early Alzheimer's disease, say scientists at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA. Your iconic memory is when you hold onto a visual image of something after looking at it briefly - the image lingers in your memory.

Dr Zhong-Lin Lu, team leader, and colleagues discovered that elderly people with mild cognitive impairment who underwent iconic memory tests did not perform as well as healthy elderly people or healthy younger people (without mild cognitive impairment).

You can read about this study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists say that eight out of every ten people with mild cognitive impairment go on to develop Alzheimer's Disease.

Dr Lu said that an iconic test may one day be used to detect early stages of Alzheimer's Disease. If people could go on drugs that delay the progression of Alzheimer's early on, their quality of life would be much better for longer.

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