VERBAL MEMORY TESTS IN THE DIFFERENTIAL-DIAGNOSIS OF DEPRESSION AND DEMENTIA - DISCRIMINATIVE POWER OF 7 TEST VARIATIONS

The many tasks for the assessment of verbal memory differ widely in fe atures of presentation and retrieval. In this study, seven common memo ry tasks (immediate and delayed free recall, randomized presentation, selective reminding, serial recall, recognition after short and long d elay) were compared for their discriminative power between depressed, demented, and healthy elderly subjects. Tasks that require little cogn itive capacity were hypothesized to be particularly useful to differen tiate the patient groups. Demented and depressed patients demonstrated deficits on all tests, the demented being more severe. Only recogniti on after long and short delay, and delayed recall distinguished dement ed from depressed patients. Delayed retrieval tasks were more useful t o discriminate patient groups than tasks that require little cognitive capacity.