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Abstract:
Abstract: Recent longitudinal studies have indicated that
mild cognitive impairments may represent early Alzheimer's disease
(AD) and not normal aging. As treatments for AD become available,
early detection becomes critical. Identifying early AD using
cognitive test performance has been quite challenging. When elders
are highly intelligent, detection is more problematic because they
score too high to meet diagnostic criteria. We explored an
alternative method for measuring early cognitive decline in highly
intelligent elders. Three years ago, we evaluated 63 highly
intelligent elders (IQ>119) who performed normally on tests
using published group norms. However, 28 of these individuals had
memory impairments when scores were adjusted for the individual's
estimated premorbid IQ; the remaining 35 elders demonstrated normal
memory performance using the IQ adjusted scores. Preliminary
results of 19 elders re-tested 3 years later found that, as
predicted, all 11 of the individuals who originally had impairments
in memory based upon the IQ adjusted scores had further declines in
memory, while all 8 of the individuals who originally performed
normally remained cognitively stable. These results suggest that
measuring decline from an elder's estimated premorbid baseline may
be a more accurate method for detecting early cognitive change in
high functioning elders than using traditional group norms. The
findings from all 63 elders will be discussed.40F
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