Abstract
Evaluation Battery for Semantic Memory Deterioration in Alzheimer. The current work presents a battery or series of tests that were elaborated with the aim of assessing the deterioration of the semantic and/or conceptual memory in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Specifically, our aim is to evaluate the knowledge of certain semantic categories, concerning to living/animated beings and inanimate beings/objects, as well as the attributes or characteristics that structure and organize them. In this article, the eight tests that make up the battery are described in detail, explaining not only their structure, composition, and administration, but also the theoretical-conceptual assumptions that support them. The tests evaluate fluidity of category exemplars, definition, denomination, attribute recognition, matching pictures-spoken words, true-or-false sentence verification, analogies, and classification. Finally, the results of the factor analyses performed out on the data obtained from a sample of 75 subjects (30 control and 45 Alzheimer patients) are described, and the construct validity of this battery, that mea sures what it is supposed to measure semantic-lexical knowledge of natural categories and of objects is evaluated.
