Visuospatial attention deficit in patients with mild and moderate dementia of Alzheimer's type

Pooja Rai

Abstract

The study investigated the impaired shifting of visuospatial attention in mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease using Attention Network Test. Further, the study aimed to compare the attentional performance in DAT patients with age-matched healthy controls. The orienting attention was assessed by manipulating the validity of spatial cues in order to measure the orienting operations of disengaging and moving with engaging in an attentional network test which comprised of flanker compatibility and spatial cued task. The reaction time, performance accuracy and error rate were recorded. The result showed that mild DAT patient performed better in comparison to moderate DAT patient when the target appeared at the valid location as compared to invalid location.