Apraxia and motor-skill acquisition in Alzheimer's disease are dissociable

Neuropsychologia. 1999 Jun;37(7):875-80. doi: 10.1016/s0028-3932(98)00139-0.

Abstract

Many patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) are apraxic and the apraxia has been posited to be related to a loss of movement representations. Whereas patients with Alzheimer's disease have been reported to demonstrate normal motor learning on a rotor pursuit skill acquisition task, it is unknown whether AD subjects who are apraxic demonstrate normal skill-learning. We tested subjects with probable AD and normal controls on a rotor pursuit task. We also tested the AD subjects for ideomotor apraxia. Subjects with AD who were apraxic had normal motor learning. In addition, praxis score did not correlate with performance on the skill-acquisition task. The results suggest that ideomotor praxis and motor learning are at least partly dissociable.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Alzheimer Disease / complications
  • Alzheimer Disease / physiopathology*
  • Alzheimer Disease / psychology*
  • Apraxias / etiology
  • Apraxias / physiopathology*
  • Apraxias / psychology*
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Learning*
  • Male
  • Motor Skills*
  • Psychomotor Performance*