Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T16:08:39.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Amnestic people with Alzheimer's disease who remembered the Kobe earthquake

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2018

Manabu Ikeda ,
Etsuro Mori ,
Nobutsugu Hirono ,
Toru Imamura ,
Tatsuo Shimomura ,
Yoshitaka Ikejiri  and
Hikari Yamashita
Manabu Ikeda*
Affiliation:
Hyogo Institute for Aging Brain and Cognitive Disorders
Etsuro Mori
Affiliation:
Hyogo Institute for Aging Brain and Cognitive Disorders
Nobutsugu Hirono
Affiliation:
Hyogo Institute for Aging Brain and Cognitive Disorders
Toru Imamura
Affiliation:
Hyogo Institute for Aging Brain and Cognitive Disorders
Tatsuo Shimomura
Affiliation:
Hyogo Institute for Aging Brain and Cognitive Disorders
Yoshitaka Ikejiri
Affiliation:
Hyogo Institute for Aging Brain and Cognitive Disorders
Hikari Yamashita
Affiliation:
Hyogo Institute for Aging Brain and Cognitive Disorders
*
Manabu Ikeda, MD, Department of Neuropsychiatry. Ehime University School of Medicine. Shigenobu. Onsengun Ehime 791-0295. Japan. Tel: 81-89-960-5315. Fax: 81-89-960-5317. e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

Emotional memory is a special category of memory for events arousing strong emotions. To investigate the effects of emotional involvement on memory retention in individuals with Alzheimer's disease we studied peoples' memories of distressing experiences during a devastating earthquake.

Method

Fifty-one subjects with probable Alzheimer's disease who experienced the Kobe earthquake at home in the greater Kobe area were studied. Memories of the earthquake were assessed 6 and 10 weeks after the disaster in semi-structured interviews, and were compared with memories of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination given after the earthquake.

Results

Forty-four (86.3%) of the subjects remembered the earthquake and 16 (31.4%) of subjects remembered the MRI experience. Factual content of the earthquake was lost in most of the subjects.

Conclusions

Fear reinforces memory retention of an episode in subjects with Alzheimer's disease but does not enhance retention of its context, despite repeated exposure to the information.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 172 , Issue 5 , May 1998 , pp. 425 - 428
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

See editorial pp. 379–380. this issue.

References

Albert, M. S. & Moss, M. B. (1992) The assessment of memory disorders in patients with Alzheimer's disease. In Neuropsychology of Memory (2nd edn) (eds L. R. Squire & N. Butters), pp. 211–219. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (1994) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edn) (DSM–IV). Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
Cahill, L., Babinsky, R., Markowitsch, H. J., et al (1995) The amygdala and emotional memory. Nature, 377, 295–296.Google Scholar
Cardeña, E. & Spiegel, D. (1993) Dissociative reactions to the San Francisco Bay Area earthquake of 1989. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 474–478.Google Scholar
Daum, I., Flor, H., Brodbeck, S., et al (1996) Autobiographical memory for emotional events in amnesia. behavioural Neurology, 9, 57–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Folstein, M. F., Folstein, S. E. & McHugh, P. R. (1975) Mini-Mental State: a practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. Journal of Psychiatric Research. 12, 189–198.Google Scholar
Hughes, C. P., Berg, L., Danziger, W. L., et al (1982) A new clinical scale for staging of dementia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 566–572.Google Scholar
Japan Times (1995) The Japan Times Special Report: The Great Hanshin Quake. Tokyo: JapanTimes.Google Scholar
LeDoux, J. E. (1993) Emotional memory systems in the brain. Behavioural Brain Research. 58, 69–79.Google Scholar
McKhann, G., Drachman, D., Folstein, M., et al (1984) Clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: report for the NINCDS-ADRDA work group under the auspices of Department of Health and Human Services Task Force on Alzheimer's disease. Neurology, 34, 939–944.Google Scholar
Meiéndez, J. C. & McCrank, E. (1993) Anxiety-related reactions associated with magnetic resonance imaging examination. Journal of the American Medical Association, 270, 745–747.Google Scholar
Popovic, M. & Petrovic, D. (1944) After the earthquake. Lancet, II, 1169–1171.Google Scholar
Rosen, W. G., Mohs, R. C. & Davis, K. L. (1984) A new rating scale for Alzheimer's disease. American Journal of Psychiatry, 141, 1356–1364.Google ScholarPubMed
Squire, L. R. (1992) Memory and the hippocampus: a synthesis from findings with rats, monkeys, and humans. Psychologicol Review, 99, 195–231.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.