PATIENTS WITH ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE WHO CANNOT PERFORM SOME MOTOR-SKILLSSHOW NORMAL LEARNING OF OTHER MOTOR-SKILLS

Previous researchers have claimed that patients with Alzheimer's disea se (AD) learn new motor skills normally, although many AD patients can not perform the tasks and must be eliminated from the analysis. Exclud ing them assumes that they have a deficit of motor performance (compet ence to perform the task), but not of motor learning (ability to impro ve performance). The present study administered 4 motor tasks to 20 AD patients and 20 controls. The results showed that the ability to comp lete 1 task (performance) did not predict the rate of improvement (lea rning) on another task, which indicates that AD patients do indeed hav e a performance deficit and not a general deficit of motor skill learn ing. Dementia ratings predicted the ability to perform tasks but not t he ability to learn them. It is concluded that it is defensible to cla im that AD patients learn a motor skill normally, even if some of the patients are unable to perform the task.