The role of environmental context in dementia

A role for contextual information is invariably assumed in theories of episodic memory function. Extensive research has been conducted on behavioural and neuroimaging measures focusing on participants’ retrieval of contextual information and on associative memory. Much evidence suggests that memory for context and associative memory start to decline early in AD. Consequently, the assumption is made that AD patients could not benefit from the incidental reinstatement of contextual information. Here, the case is made that a more thorough differentiation needs to be made between memory for context and the influence of incidental context reinstatement. Such a distinction would suggest the possibility that AD patients could benefit from the reinstatement of contextual information is worth exploring further