Alzheimer memory training: Students replicate learning successes

Abstract

Eleven subjects with Alzheimer's disease took a 30-item biographical baseline quiz. Seven experimentals received 10 weekly sessions of a tape-recorded narrative plus quiz exercise, created and administered by university undergraduates. Controls had equivalent student contact, but no memory training. The exercise contained all items missed on the baseline quiz, plus additional items. Experimentals learned or relearned seven - 13 personal facts, as determined by a post-test administered one distraction-filled hour after the 10th training session. Experimentals' improvement in performance from the first to the last session was highly significant and experimentals did significantly better than controls on a readministration of the baseline test.