Autobiographical memory in advanced multiple sclerosis: assessment of episodic and personal semantic memory across three time spans.

In order to investigate the status of remote memory the Autobiographical Memory Interview (AMI) was administered to 30 individuals with advanced multiple sclerosis (MS). In contrast to earlier studies which have shown only mild deficits in autobiographical memory in those with less physical progression of the disease, about two-thirds (60%) of the present MS sample had a deficit in autobiographical memory. The presence of such a deficit was not related to age, age of onset, duration of illness, or level of physical disability, but was related to level of general cognitive ability. Memory for episodic autobiographical incidents was more affected than for personal semantic information; a temporal gradient typical of some dementing conditions but not before demonstrated in MS, was also observed with memory for more recent events showing a significant decline.