[Memories and Alzheimer's disease].

INTRODUCTION: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly. Memory loss is generally the most pervasive cognitive symptom of AD but is not the only one and is not homogeneous in its loss. DEVELOPMENT: Memory complaint is one of the most frequent complaints in elderly people but not all complaints of memory inefficiencies in old age reflect dementing illnesses. Amnesia is the failure or lack of memory. Research in cognitive psychology and neuropsychology of memory has produced evidence than human memory is not a unitary aspect of human cognition but is organized in independent systems. Tulving (1995) and Van der Linden (1997) identified at least five major memory systems: primary memory or working memory, episodic memory, semantic memory, procedural system and perceptual priming. From a theoretical view of multiple memory systems, the purpose of the present conference is the review of multiple systems models of human memory and the memory processes, encoding, storage and retrieval in AD and memory assessment. Memory assessment is not limited by formal testing and requires ecological assessment by daily living tasks of AD patients. Appropriateness of multiple memory systems models is discussed.