| Summary: | 碩士 === 高雄醫學大學 === 職能治療學系碩士在職專班 === 104 === The purposes of this study were fourfold : (1) to investigate the frequency of memory impairment in alcoholic patients, (2) to compare memory scores among patients with different levels of severity of alcohol use, (3) to compare differences between verbal and visual memory , immediate and delayed recall , as well as prospective and retrospective memory, and (4) to explore the correspondence between proxy and patients'' self-ratings with respect to prospective and retrospective memory performance.
One hundred and eighty alcoholic patients aged 20-65 years participated in the study. They were divided into three groups based on severity of alcohol dependence, 60 in each group.180 proxy respondents, such as relatives or caregivers, were recruited as well. Patients were administered the logical memory and word lists subtests from the Wechsler Memory Scale-Third Edition, Rey Complex Figure Test, Brief Visuospatial Memory Test, and the Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ), whereas the proxy respondents were given the PRMQ. Several findings emerged from the study. Firstly, the frequency at which patients performed in the impaired range with respect to verbal and visual memory, immediate, and delayed recall as well as proxy-rated prospective memory was 21.1%, 46.1%, 5%, and 9.4% respectively Secondly, The differences among the three groups were statistically significant on each of the memory measures tested. Thirdly, patients showed poorer visual than verbal memory scores, scored higher on delayed recall than immediate recall, and performed worse on prospective memory tasks than retrospective memory. Lastly, only three PRMQ items demonstrated a moderate level of agreement between the self-raters and proxy raters.
To sum up, alcoholic patients showed varying degrees of impairments across memory measures, and that severity of alcohol dependence had a negative impact on memory performance. There were some discrepancies between patient self and proxy-rated everyday memory. These evidence suggested that memory should be considered as part of a routine neuropsychological assessment in clinical practice for alcoholic patients, such that targeted intervention can be implemented.
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