Do subgroups of patients with Alzheimer's disease exhibit asymmetric deficits on memory tests?

Several studies have reported asymmetric cognitive profiles in patients wit h Alzheimer's disease (AD), but these results have almost exclusively been found using non-memory cognitive instruments. The present study investigate d whether AD patients who display lateralized profiles on non-memory cognit ive instruments also exhibit asymmetric deficits on verbal versus spatial m emory tests. Sixty-eight AD patients participated in the study: 36 with a " High Verbal'' cognitive profile, and 32 with a "High Spatial'' profile. The results indicated that the High Verbal AD patients performed significantly better than the High Spatial AD patients on verbal memory tests, but the t wo subgroups failed to differ on spatial memory tests. Implications of thes e findings for understanding the heterogeneous nature of cognitive profiles in AD patients are discussed.