Objective: To investigate the use of memory compensation strategies in Parkinson’s disease.

Background: Difficulty with memory is a particular cause of complaint in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and is a predictor of subsequent cognitive decline. Cognitive training is now a more commonly investigated nonpharmacological technique for alleviating cognitive deficits in PD. However, little is known about how patients independently recruit memory compensation strategies (MCS) in their daily lives. The current study aimed to investigate how commonly strategies are employed, and what predicts their use.

Methods: Patients were recruited through the PD Research Clinic at the University of Sydney. The Memory Compensations Questionnaire (MCQ) was used to measure strategy use. The 45-item questionnaire leads to scores in five scales representing strategy use: ‘Internal’ (use of internal strategies), ‘External’ (use of external strategies), ‘Recruitment’ (reliance on other people), ‘Effort’ (investment of effort into memory tasks) and ‘Time’ (investment of time into memory tasks). There are an additional two scales assessing compensation beliefs: ‘Change’ (observation of memory change in last 5-10 years) and ‘Success’ (commitment to high level of memory performance). Other typical clinical measures where obtained during the clinic assessment. We built three multiple regression models to predict external and internal strategy use, along with recruitment. All clinical variables which were significantly correlated with these MCS were entered at once into the respective model.

Results: Data for 81 patients was obtained. The sample was relatively high functioning. Patients prioritized external strategies above internal, and relied on friends and family least. Time, effort, change, and gender significantly accounted for 22.6% of the variance in external strategy use (F76,4 = 5.547, p < .001). Time, effort, success, change and depression scores significantly accounted for 54.6% of the variance in internal strategy use (F72,5 = 5.547, p < .001). Time, effort, success, change, gender, depression and memory scores accounted for 36.6% of the variance in external strategy use (F69,8 = 4.983, p < .001).

Conclusions: Preliminary data suggests MCS are used by non-demented patients with PD, although guidance may be needed in remediation programs, to increase internal strategy use. Future research is needed to investigate MCS in a more impaired sample.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/memory-compensation-strategies-in-patients-with-parkinsons-disease/