Relationship between Educational Level and the Activity of Brain Waves with the Cognitive Performances of Alzheimer Patients in East Azerbaijan

Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder accompany with cognitive, behavioral and motoral abnormalities. Several factors affect this multifactorial disease. The most important factors in addition of genetic factors is general educational level of these patients. In this study, 50 patients with Alzheimer's disease were enrolled. After obtaining demographic characteristics including general educational level, alpha wave was analyzed in different lobes using Quantitative Electro Encephalography (QEEG) and Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) test to determine the cognitive criteria. The mean age of patients was (71.5 ± 6.08 years, the MMSE mean score was (14.79 ± 5.08) and mean educational duration was three years. The QEEG study showed that absolute power of alpha wave has significant association with cognitive functions in different regions of brain (P≤0.05). The results showed; educational level, alpha of parietal and frontal lobes predicted and explained with %68 percission the changes of calculation function in the mal performance of patients with Alzheimer`s disease (P≤0.05). The general education level along with other causes of Alzheimer's disease plays an important role in the development of this disorder. People with higher level of education are less likely to develop the disease.