ISSN: 2161-0460

Journal of Alzheimers Disease & Parkinsonism
Open Access

Our Group organises 3000+ Global Conferenceseries Events every year across USA, Europe & Asia with support from 1000 more scientific Societies and Publishes 700+ Open Access Journals which contains over 50000 eminent personalities, reputed scientists as editorial board members.

Open Access Journals gaining more Readers and Citations
700 Journals and 15,000,000 Readers Each Journal is getting 25,000+ Readers

This Readership is 10 times more when compared to other Subscription Journals (Source: Google Analytics)
  • Short Communication   
  • J Alzheimers Dis Parkinsonism 2017, Vol 7(6): 389
  • DOI: 10.4172/2161-0460.1000389

Alzheimer’s disease and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Similar Memory and Executive Functions Impairments?

Soledad Ballesteros1* and Maria Teresa Redondo2
1Studies on Aging and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Group, Department of Basic Psychology II, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), , Madrid, Spain
2Consellería de Sanitat, , Valencia, Spain
*Corresponding Author : Soledad Ballesteros, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Juan Del Rosal, 10 28040, Madrid, Spain, Tel: (34) 913986227, Email: mballesteros@psi.uned.es

Received Date: Oct 10, 2017 / Accepted Date: Oct 16, 2017 / Published Date: Oct 23, 2017

Abstract

Alzheimer´s disease (AD) accounts for more than half of all the cases of dementia. T2DM is a highly prevalent chronic metabolic condition among older adults, and is considered a risk factor to develop AD and other types of dementia. Currently, the incidence of both, AD and type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is a major public health problem in developed countries. Given the similarities between the metabolic and vascular changes occurring in the brain of diabetic patients and in AD patients, a relevant question is whether a series of main cognitive abilities, including episodic memory, working memory and executive functions are similarly impaired in AD and T2DM patients. Recent research has shown a clear dissociation between implicit and explicit memory. Results have shown intact implicit memory in both clinical groups, similar to that of healthy older adults, and impaired episodic (explicit) memory in both groups of patients, especially in ADs. At the same time, visuospatial and verbal working memory (updating and maintenance of information assessed with n-back tasks) showed significant declines in AD and T2DM but larger in ADs. Executive control assessed with the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) showed similar declines in both groups of patients. Neuropsychologists and clinicians need to take into account the decline of long-term episodic memory and executive control processes in T2DM for their negative impact on treatment management. At the same time, the spared implicit memory of AD and T2DM patients could be used to support rehabilitation.

Keywords: Alzheimer´s disease; Executive functions; Implicit memory; Episodic memory; Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus; Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST); Working memory

Citation: Ballesteros S, Redondo MT (2017) Alzheimer’s disease and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Similar Memory and Executive Functions Impairments? J Alzheimers Dis Parkinsonism 7: 389. Doi: 10.4172/2161-0460.1000389

Copyright: © 2017 Ballesteros S, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Top