UNAWARENESS OF COGNITIVE DEFICIT IN ALZHEIMER-DISEASE AND RELATED DEMENTIAS

The objective of this study was to determine whether unawareness of co gnitive deficit is disease-specific. One hundred thirty-two patients w ere studied: grouped according to diagnosis of definite or probable Al zheimer disease, vascular dementia, geropsychiatric control, or geriat ric control. Diagnosis was the independent variable, and unawareness o f cognitive deficit was the dependent variable:. The Mini-Mental State Examination score was used as a dementia severity covariate. Analysis of covariance was significant (F = 8.0,p < 0.0001). Follow-up mean co mparisons showed the Alzheimer disease group to have significantly gre ater unawareness of cognitive deficit than all other groups. The vascu lar dementia group had significantly greater unawareness of cognitive deficit than the two control groups. These results support the premise that, independent of dementia severity, unawareness of cognitive defi cit is disease specific.