Positive and Negative Consequences of Making Coffee among Breakfast Related Irrelevant Objects: Evidence from MCI, Dementia, and Healthy Ageing.

OBJECTIVES: Previous studies have reported impairments in activities of daily living (ADL) performance in the presence of irrelevant but physically/functionally related objects in dementia patients. The aim of the present study was to increase our knowledge about the impact of the presence of contextually related non-target objects on ADL execution in patients with multi-domain mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia.

METHODS: We compared ADL execution in patients with MCI, dementia, and healthy elderly participants under two experimental conditions: One in which the target objects were embedded with contextually related non-target items that constituted the object set necessary to complete two additional (but unrequired) ADL tasks related to the target task, and a second, control condition where target objects were surrounded by isolated objects (they never constituted a whole set needed to complete an alternative ADL task).

RESULTS: Separate analysis of ADL errors associated with the target task versus errors involving the non-target objects revealed that, although the presence of contextually related objects facilitated the accomplishment of the target task, such a condition also led to errors involving the use of irrelevant objects in dementia and MCI.

CONCLUSIONS: The presence of contextually related non-target items produces both positive and negative effects on ADL performance. These types of non-target objects might help to cue the retrieval of the action schema related to the target task, particularly in patients with MCI. In contrast, the presence of these objects might also lead to distraction in dementia and MCI. (JINS, 2017, 23, 481-492).