Prose memory in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease

Background: The findings of previous studies have suggested that verbal memory impairments were observed in people suffering from Parkinson's disease (PD). Very few studies have examined the comprehensive profile of prose memory deficits that challenges people with PD. Methods: Prose memory of 19 patients with PD was examined. Their performance in three constructs, namely recall accuracy, temporal sequence, and distortions, during immediate, delayed and recognition trials was studied. Results: The patients with PD performed significantly worse in recall accuracy and temporal sequencing of information in the immediate recall trial. During the recognition trial, they made more false alarms than their healthy counterparts. Conclusions: Our findings confirm that the performance of people with PD in immediate recall of a prose was impaired. However, the level of performance in subsequent learning and delayed recall trials became comparable to that of the normal controls. The deficit remaining after multiple learning trials was the significantly high false alarms committed in the recognition trial. Our findings highlight the importance of qualitative analysis, in addition to quantitative evaluation, of prose memory in PD.