Journal of North Khorasan

Background & objective: Alzheimer's is a progressive brain disease that destroys brain cells to be causing impairment in memory and cognitive processes. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was the evaluation of cognitive function deficit in elderly patients with and without Alzheimer's disease using the dual task.

Material and Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental and between subject and within subject design was used in it. The 23 subjects (11 females and 12 males) with an age range of 62 to 81 years; 13 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 10 healthy elderly subjects (EC) with normal cognitive function participated in this study. Identifying people with Alzheimer's disease and healthy people was performed based on physician diagnoses and the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ). After obtaining the average number of correct counting of months of the year in both simple and difficult cognitive task, each person was performed 10 tasks simultaneously (under Dual-task) in both simple and difficult condition.

Results: The results showed that the AD group compared to the matched controls (EC) in the difficult condition of cognitive task, more errors were committed. Also level of difficulty and AD disease effect on drop in the average number of months counted at dual-task condition was significant (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: It seems that attentional tasks is appropriate to separate patients with AD and healthy elderly individuals. But for a more detailed explanation of this issue, there is a need for further researches.

Key words: healthy elderly, Alzheimer's disease, cognitive Task, Dual Task.