Personality changes in Alzheimer's disease

BACKGROUND: Assessment of personality changes in patients with dementia has received little systematic investigation, although caregivers report personality modifications in every phase of dementia. METHODS: A group of 52 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) vs. a group of fifteen control subjects were selected for these personality tests before and after the manifestation of dementia using an Italian version of Brooks and McKinaly's Personality Inventory (PI). RESULTS: After the onset of AD, a significant shift from positive to negative characteristics in PI was observed in 12 of 18 bipolar pairs of adjectives constituting the instrument and the total mean PI score decreased significantly (p < 0.001), indicating a substantial worsening of personality profile. In the control group however, evaluated before and after retirement, personality traits and total mean PI score did not show a significant change. The association of personality traits and total PI score with demographic, cognitive and functional characteristics of AD patients was calculated. CONCLUSION: Personality changes have been depicted to be influenced by severity of cognitive, functional and behavioural complaints rather than age, sex, education and disease duration. These first applications of the Italian version of PI confirmed that personality modifications make a consistent aspect of the phenomenology of AD although in the negative direction. Further studies are needed to understand the nature of personality changes in dementia and the utility of PI to investigate these changes.