ALZHEIMER PATIENTS USE OF AUDITORY AND OLFACTORY CUES TO AID VERBAL MEMORY

As part of a programme of studies investigating memory for everyday ta sks, we examined the potential of auditory and olfactory sensory cues to improve free recall of an action event (cooking an omelette) by ind ividuals with dementia of the Alzheimer type. Both healthy elderly and volunteers with DAT recalled more of the individual actions which com prised the event when they listened, prior to recall, to a tape of sou nds associated with the event. Olfactory cues which accompanied audito ry cues did not produce additional benefits over auditory cues alone. The pattern of recall suggests that the auditory cues improved recall of the whole event, and were not merely increasing recall of the speci fic actions associated with the sound cues. The results strongly sugge st that individuals with DAT continue to encode experiences multimodal ly, and that they can subsequently use sensory information to aid memo ry. This has practical implications for accessing residual memory for a wide range of everyday activities.