ABSTRACT
The significant differences between the groups on all the paired-associate learning tests indicated that the memory disordered group required very many more trials on every test to learn up to the level of the criterion. In one analysis of the essential aspects of learning and memory function, A. T. Welford has described several critical phases. The number of deaths occurring in a group of fifteen elderly psychiatric patients suffering from memory disorder was compared with mortality in a matched group of fifteen nonmemory-disordered patients over a period of sixteen months. The control group was principally composed of functionally disordered patients diagnosed as cases of depression and paranoid schizophrenia. If the chain is broken at this point, the whole sequence of learning may be disrupted with the consequent appearance of the kind of severe memory disorder and disorientation seen in senile dementia.
