MEMORY DYSFUNCTION OF THE FRONTAL TYPE IN NORMAL AGING

IN this study healthy subjects divided into five consecutive age group s (20-60 years of age) completed a series of memory tasks which had pr eviously been shown to reveal impairments in patients with frontal lob e lesions. Significant age differences were found for free recall, ret ention rates for material which required effortful encoding, memory fo r temporal order and prospective memory. In the tests addressing these memory functions, subjects of more than 60 years of age performed mor e poorly than the youngest group, and they also showed evidence of fal se recognition (increased false alarm rates and confabulatory response s). The general pattern suggests that inefficient frontal functioning might contribute to age-related memory problems.