| Sumario: | BACKGROUND: A modified version of the Selective Reminding Test (SRT) (Buschke 1973) was used to examine the changes in memory that occur with early-stage dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) in adults with intellectual disability (ID) and Down's syndrome (DS), and to compare these changes to those occurring with 'normal' ageing. METHOD: Hierarchical linear modelling analyses showed steep declines in the performance of participants who had met the criteria for the onset of DAT. Non-demented participants also showed declines in performance which were related to their age. However, the absolute magnitude of these declines was consistent with a 'normal' ageing pattern and not with undetected dementia. RESULTS: In analysing the specific memory components that are compromised, the present authors found that participants with early-stage DAT showed severely diminished long-term storage and retrieval processing abilities compared to their non-demented peers. Notably, these declines preceded other symptoms of dementia, in most cases by more than a full year and sometimes by as much as 3 years. CONCLUSIONS: Thus, the present results clearly confirm that memory processes are affected during early dementia in adults with DS, and that the SRT has promise as a clinical tool.
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