Caso Clínico Psicología De La Memoría

Clinical Case:

Sergio Miguel Gordillo Calatrava-Rafael Ariza Vázquez.

Grupo A1 (Inglés).

1. Presentation of the case.

Some days ago, a woman who is 72 years old came to our neuropsychological cabinet accompanied by her sister who is some years younger than her. The patient is called Mary and she is from Norwich and nowadays is retired: she was some years ago a teacher in aprimary school. She is worried because she is not able to remember recent events or conversations, and she has some difficulties to remember facts which happened in her own words: “not when I was a child but when I was a teacher in my late forties. I have more and more and difficulties to recall things of my life and that scare me”. She also told us she has several problems of orientation. At thebeginning she did not attach a lot of importance but when she started to get lost in her own city, Norwich, where she have been living for more than 40 years she realized she had a problem. Her orientation problems are not only spatial but temporal ones too: “I even do not know which day I am living. I have never been good with the dates of the calendar, but I think this is strange, I do not seenormal”. She also referred some behavioral changes, as “Nowadays, I do not feel like going out as much as I used to, and I am a very sociable person. I do not know what is happening to me”. She also referred that she had sometimes difficulties to speak: “I do not know, it is like if I forgot the word or the phrase I want to say. I am really worried”. Because of these problems, she told us her mood islately not very good. She decided to go to a medical center, where the doctor sent her to our neuropsychological cabinet.

2. Exploration of the memory problems. Tests selection. Results of the exploration.

-First phase: Basic Test of Cognitive Evaluation.

We use this first phase to check if she really has some cognitive problems, although this case seems clearly in thissense. In spite of that, we had to pass her a basic test of cognitive evaluation: she carried out the Mini-Mental State Examination of Folstein and the results were:

-Lack of time orientation.

-Lack of space orientation.

-Errors in tasks related to Episodic Memory, Working Memory and some light errors in Semantic Memory.

Grade: 15.

Results: as the gradeshe obtained was under 24, the limit of normality, she passed to our second phase of cognitive evaluation. She was diagnosed moderate cognitive impairment for the time being.

-Second phase: scale to determine impairment level.

· Firstly, she passed Hamilton Depression Scale because we wanted to be sure that their cognitive impairments were not caused by a depression, because shetold us her mood was not very good.

Results: 2, normal affective state. No depression.

· After that she carried out Alzheimer Assessment Evaluation.

Results:

-Concentration: some errors while subtracting number series from 40 to 0 so: Moderate impairment (level V).

-Fixation Memory: Temporal and spatial errors (level V): moderate impairment (level V).-Evocation Memory: deficiencies while remembering the past: moderate impairment (level V).

-Orientation: total temporal confusions: moderate impairment (level V).

-Personal Care: some impairments but lights one until nowadays. Light impairment (level IV).

-Language: some verbal deficiencies. Light impairments (level IV).

-Psicomotriz Activity: Normal, itis not affected (level I).

-Activity and Behavior: Increased anxiety by intellectual impairment (level II).

-Praxis: Normal (level I).

-Calculation: difficulties with basic operations of calculation (level V).

· WAIS test. She carried it out because we wanted to obtain more accurate data to be able to elaborate a more exact diagnostic. WAIS has got two...