Facial perception in Alzheimer's disease : investigating the gnostic line of facial recognition

Abstract

Background. Deficits in facial recognition in people with Alzheimer's (AD) is a highly attributed and studied aspect in relation to memory problems. Although the reality of memory deficits in the clinic of the disease is a fact, this is not the only explanatory aspect for facial recognition problems; This can also be explained by Gnostic Problems. Evidence literature exists for this line but it is highly understudied. Objective. To study whether there is a specific deficit in facial visual perception in patients with AD, contrasting the results with a control group. Method. A sample of 10 participants (5 clinical and 5 controls) were evaluated in a cognitive screening test (MMSE), one of facial visuoperceptive skills (the central paradigm of the study, the BFRT-r), and two of generic visuoperceptive skills (RBANS line orientation test and VOSP number location test). Results. The analyses of the data collected in the tasks showed significant differences between groups in the facial perception test with a lower performance by the clinical group, while not in the generic visuoperceptives. Conclusions. The study suggests significant evidence on the deficit in facial perception on the part of Alzheimer's patients in the sample compared to the control group.