Comparison of age- and dementia-dependent cognitive modifications: a cross sectional study with Alzheimer patients and normal 20-year-older controls.

Alzheimer's patients (DAT/pts) and 2 control groups (one matched for age and education and one for education but 20 years older) were given ten cognitive ability tasks suited to test language, memory and intelligence performances. The aim was to ascertain whether test score relationships changed between DAT/pts and the 20-year-older controls. Test profiles appeared to be similar for memory and intelligence but not for language tasks. This outcome, however, cannot be definitely accepted, and the experiment is discussed to define the methodological constraints that warn against a naive interpretation of the multivariate profiles.