Ak. Troyer et al., CONCEPTUAL REASONING AS A MEDIATOR OF VERBAL RECALL IN PATIENTS WITH MULTIPLE-SCLEROSIS, Neuropsychology, development, and cognition. Section A, Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology, 18(2), 1996, pp. 211-219
A number of intercorrelated factors, including level of neurologic imp
airment, age, and conceptual reasoning, appear to be related to memory
performance among patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). A battery of
neuropsychological tests was administered to 131 patients with MS ran
ging in age from 19 to 76 years, with a mean symptom duration of 12.3
years and an overall mild level of MS-related neurologic impairment. R
egression analyses indicated that neurologic impairment and age each c
ontributed uniquely to the prediction of delayed free recall of a word
list. Furthermore, when the effect of conceptual reasoning was accoun
ted for, neither neurologic impairment nor age were significantly rela
ted to recall. Thus, a mediated relation was confirmed, supporting the
idea that a significant portion of neurologic-impairment-related and
age-related differences in recall are due to differences in conceptual
reasoning that are important for optimal performance on tests of reca
ll. Additional analyses failed to support a similar mediated relation
using recognition rather than recall as the measure of memory performa
nce.