Objective: We aim to portray memory impairment in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) from an objective and subjective angle by using an innovative cross-modal associative paradigm and self-report measures.

Background: Memory impairment is a hallmark of the cognitive deficits in Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, it remains unclear which processes underlie this deficit. Also, little is known about these patients’ subjective experience of memory difficulties and their relationship with objective measures of memory performance.

Method: Thirty participants (15 individuals with PD and 15 healthy controls) were assessed with an extended version of the Face-Name Associative Memory Exam (FNAME) and the Memory Failures of Everyday Questionnaire (MFE-28). We also explored how clinical and cognitive variables could be related with memory complaints in PD.

Results: On the FNAME, individuals with PD exhibited lower performance in free recall (both immediate and delayed), as well as in name recognition and matching, whereas face recognition was similar in the PD and control groups. Importantly, when controlling for initial learning (i.e., encoding), group effects disappeared, except for matching. Associative memory was therefore significantly compromised in PD, and it strongly correlated with memory complaints.

Conclusion: Overall, the present study further clarifies the source of memory impairment in PD by distinguishing between encoding, retrieval and binding processes. Our results suggest that associative memory may constitute a sensitive measure to detect subtle memory deficits in PD. Thus, our study highlights the clinical value of including associative memory tests such as the FNAME in PD neuropsychological assessment.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/face-name-matching-and-memory-complaints-in-parkinsons-disease/