Impact of emotions on declarative memory in Alzheimer's disease

The objective of this research was to determine the influence of emotions on declarative memory processes in people with Alzheimer's disease. A study with a comparative-correlational design and a non-probabilistic model was proposed. 160 elderly people participated, 80 with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and 80 with normal aging, homologous in age, gender and school level. It was found that in general negative emotions favor the coding storage and evocation of information in people with Alzheimer's disease, rather than positive ones, and the greatest influence is on information content associated with emotions such as fear and sadness. Likewise, providing semantic keys allows a greater amount of information to be evoked. Memory in normal and pathological aging benefits from the links established between information and contextual emotions at the time of recording and storing it since memory is one of the main impairments in Alzheimer's disease, this link is key in the approach of pathology and clinical intervention programs.