Affiliations: Clinique Interdisciplinaire de Mémoire, Département des Sciences Neurologiques du CHU de Québec, and Faculté de Médecine, Université Laval, QC, Canada
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: David Bergeron, MD-PhD candidate, Clinique Interdisciplinaire de Mémoire, Département des Sciences, Neurologiques, CHU de Québec, QC, Canada. Tel.: +1 418 649 5980; Fax: +1 418 649 5981; E-mail: david.bergeron.5@ulaval.ca.
Abstract: The finger-to-nose test is routinely performed during the clinical assessment of patients with cognitive impairments. Although widely known to screen for cerebellar dysfunction by unmasking appendicular ataxia, we have found that this test could also be interpreted from a cognitive perspective. We describe two typical signs observed at the finger-to-nose test in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients: the “second finger syndrome” and the “distal pressure sign”. By retrospectively reviewing the medical records 461 patients followed at our academic memory clinic, we found that these signs are commonplace in AD, but not in vascular dementia or subjective cognitive impairment.
