Cholinergic 'blockade' as a model of the cognitive deficits in Alzheimer's disease.

The performance of 44 Alzheimer patients and 33 controls was examined on tests previously found to be differentially affected by scopolamine administration. Tests of secondary memory, performance intelligence, primary memory, semantic retrieval, procedural memory and verbal intelligence were included. It was found that Alzheimer patients performed more poorly than controls on tests of secondary memory, as measured by selective reminding, recall and recognition. Procedural memory, as measured by stem completion, homophone spelling and transformed text reading, did not differ between Alzheimer patients and controls. Semantic memory, verbal intelligence and primary memory were impaired in moderate and severe cases. However, patients with 'mild' dementia, as measured by the Mini-Mental State Examination, did not differ from controls on tests of semantic memory, verbal intelligence and primary memory. It was concluded that the pattern of anterograde memory deficits and preserved abilities in mild dementia mimicked that previously observed in scopolamine administration in young subjects.