Prose recall in dementia - A comparison of delay intervals

Objective: To explore one methodological variation, delay length, that may contribute to contradictory findings in the literature regarding the us of delayed recall in the detection of early stage dementia of the Alzheimer type Design: Comparison of participants with dementia and without dementia on a prose recall task at both 10- and 30-minute delay intervals. Setting: Washington University Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, St Louis, Mo. Participants: Participants with very mild dementia of the Alzheimer type (n=136) and uncompromised elderly individuals (n=197). Main Outcome Measures: Results of the logical Memory subtest from the Wechsler Memory Scale with immediate recall and 10- and 30-minute delayed recall. Results: Participants with dementia recalled significantly less material than elderly controls at both immediate and delayed recall (P<.001). Multiple regression analyses revealed that dementia classification failed to account for additional variance in the 30-minute delayed score beyond that which could be accounted for by the immediate score. A small but significant proportion of variance was accounted for in the 10-minute delayed score beyond that which could be accounted for by the immediate recall score. Conclusion: Delayed recall of a prose passage does not appear to enhance the differentiation of very mild dementia of the Alzheimer type from normal aging in a meaningful way, whether the recall delay is 10 or 30 minutes.