68 Abstracts from the 18th Annual Meeting

tients received a battery of neuropsychological tests preoperatively and postoperatively

at their outpatient follow-up visit (median = 54 days postoperatively). The neuropsy-
chological test battery encompassed five domains: attention (WAIS-R Digit Span sub-
test), processing speed (Trail Making Test, Part A; Symbol Digit Modalities Test, oral
version), memory (WMS-R Logical Memory subtest, WMS-R Verbal Paired Associate
subtest), executive function (Trail Making Test, Part B; WMS-R Similarities subtest)
and fine motor function (Grooved Pegboard; Finger Tapping Test). For each test, post-
operative data were expressed as standard deviates from baseline (preoperative means)
and combined to form composite scores for each domain. Analysis of covariance was
performed on these composite scores using age as a covariate. Additionally, data were
dichotomized to reflect either deterioration or improvement in neuropsychological per-
formance relative to baseline and a multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed
to determine the influence of D H C A and patient age on neuropsychological outcome.

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Results: The analysis of covariance revealed that relative to patients who did not un-
dergo D H C A , those who received >25 minutes of D H C A experienced fine motor and
memory dysfunction postoperatively (significant decrease in group means). Age was a
significant covariate. The multivariate logistic regression revealed that D H C A >25 min-
utes and advanced age were significant predictors of poor postoperative performance
for memory and fine motor function (a significantly higher proportion of individuals re-
ceiving D H C A >25 minutes had a deterioration in performance).

Yuspeh, R. L., & Vanderploeg, R. D.

Are Subjective Cognitive Complaints Indicative o f Preclinical Alzheimer's Disease?
Early detection of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is important for a number of reasons relat-
ing to the clinical care of patients including determining the effectiveness of different
pharmacological treatments, remediation techniques, and therapeutic interventions. In
the present study 28 patients presenting to a memory disorders clinic with subjective
cognitive complaints (SCC) (mean age = 75.29, SD = 7. 15; mean education = 13.46,
SD = 2.84) that did not meet N I N C D S / A D R D A criteria for possible or probable AD or
DSM-IV criteria for depression were compared to 22 community residing (CR) healthy
older adults (mean age = 78.18, SD = 5.92; mean education = 14.41, SD = 2.13) without
cognitive complaints on a brief battery of neuropsychological tests. Groups did not differ
in age or education. Multiple t test comparisons were calculated in order to determine
whether the SCC and CR subjects differed significantly on individual neuropsychologi-
cal measures. A Bonferroni correction was calculated in order to offset the increased
chance of a Type 1 error produced by multiple comparisons (p < .05). Differences were
observed between the two groups on measures of semantic fluency (t(47) = -3.62, p <
.001), word list recognition (t(32) = -4.04, p < .0001), and delayed recall of a praxis task
(t(46) = -3.71, p < .001) after this correction was calculated. Consistent with previous
research (e.g., Jacobs et al., 1995; Morris et al., 1991; O'Brien et al., 1992;) these results
stress that older persons who present with complaints of decline in cognitive abilities
must be taken seriously and may very well be indicative of a preclinical phase of AD.

Yuspeh, R. L., & Vanderpioeg, R. D.

Neuropsychological Performance in Depression and Subcortical Vascular Dementia.
The present study examined the neuropsychological performance in 70 individuals re-
ferred to a memory disorders clinic to aid in differential diagnosis. 20 patients were diag-
nosed with depression (Dep) (mean age = 70.20), 25 patients were diagnosed with a sub-
cortical vascular dementia (SVaD) (mean age = 74.24), and 25 patients received no
diagnosis (ND) (mean age = 73.92). A N O V A revealed that groups did not differ in age,