AWARENESS OF MEMORY DEFICIT IN ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE PATIENTS AND MEMORY-IMPAIRED OLDER ADULTS

Unawareness of memory deficit has been observed in Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the various aspects of this phenomenon have not all been in vestigated simultaneously. In addition, it is unclear whether elderly persons with circumscribed memory impairment also display diminished a wareness. A comprehensive approach addressing various metamemory dimen sions was used to investigate memory awareness in AD, memory-impaired, and elderly control subjects. The results showed that the AD patients reported no more memory decline than did the memory-impaired or contr ol subjects, while the informants reported greater decline for AD subj ects. A comparison between self- and informant ratings showed that the AD patients were unaware of the extent of their memory decline. Dimin ished self-monitoring abilities were observed in the AD patients' tend ency to overestimate their performance, and to make intrusion errors w ith few self-corrections. The findings revealed diminished memory awar eness across metamemory measures in AD patients but not among memory-i mpaired individuals.