Procedural memory in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease

Motor, perceptual, and cognitive skill learning abilities of mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients were compared to sex-, age-, and education-matched controls. We excluded patients who were unable to perform each skill learning task with a predetermined criterion. In those who completed the task, skill learning was as good as in normal controls. On the cognitive and perceptual skill learnings, some of the AD patients, whose cognitive but not declarative memory functions were more severely impaired than in those who completed the whole session, failed to complete the task, while all patients could complete the motor task. These results support the view that patients with mild AD can acquire motor, perceptual, and cognitive skills and that the neural system subserving procedural skill is not related to the neural systems for declarative memory.