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ABSTRACTResidual cognitive abilities and memory optimisation in Alzheimer’s diseaseAlzheimer’s disease is characterised by severe memory deficits related to the inability toconsciously recollect previously encountered information regarding place, people or events.However, some residual cognitive abilities could remain in Alzheimer’s disease allowing thepatients to access these past experiences by non-conscious means of recovery. The mainobjective of this doctoral thesis is to investigate some residual cognitive abilities and theconditions that may optimise patients’ memory performances. The first study conductedprovided results showing that implicit memory processes are preserved in Alzheimer’s diseaseincluding after quite long delays of about thirty minutes. Furthermore, through a metaanalysisincluding eighteen studies, we concluded that encoding conditions requiringgeneration or semantic elaboration processes are likely to optimise patients’ implicit memoryprocesses. Lastly, we conducted a third study investigating the difference in visuo-spatialworking memory abilities between men and women in Alzheimer’s disease. The resultsshowing that male patients still present a greater ability than females to actively manipulatevisuo-spatial information suggest that sex could figure among the numerous variablescontributing to modulate the clinical manifestation of the disease. Despite the severity of thecognitive deterioration in Alzheimer’s disease, these studies illustrate the persistence of somecognitive abilities and also the conditions likely to optimise the enhancement of such residualabilities. These results may have potential clinical application dedicated to improve thecognitive rehabilitation of patients' memory deficits.Key-words: Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, memory, explicit, implicit, cognitive reserve2