INTRODUCTION:

The amnestic subtype of mild cognitive impairment (amn-MCI) is considered to be a phenotype of Alzheimer's disease in the prodromal stages. Given memory deficit that characterizes patients with amn-MCI, it hypothesized that their performance in explicit memory task would not be influenced by the practice effect when a retest is performed over a relatively short time.

OBJECTIVE:

To evaluate the explicit verbal and visual memory of a group of patients (N = 13) with amn-MCI, comparing their performance in 2 evaluative moments: the first to the clinical diagnosis and the other four months after.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

An ex post facto comparative descriptive study was carried out with a group evolutionary research plan. Verbal explicit memory was evaluated with the Buschke Selective Reminded Test and explicit visual memory with the Complex Figure of Rey. The statistical analysis was performed with the SPSS program version 2.0, obtaining means and standard deviations and using p <0.05 as statistically significant.

RESULTS:

The analyzes from the t-student test show that the differences between both moments were not statistically significant (p <0.05).

CONCLUSIONS:

The results support the previous evidence of absence of practice effect in the successive evaluations in the amn-MCI, which is explained by the chronic deficit of anterograde memory that prevents significant learning, even in the face of repeated exposure to the same test materials and in short retest periods.

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