Original

Prediction of cognitive impairment in the elderly by analysing their performance in verbal fluency and in sustained attention

A.G. López Pérez-Díaz, M.D. Calero, E. Navarro-González [REV NEUROL 2013;56:1-7] PMID: 23250675 DOI: https://doi.org/10.33588/rn.5601.2012281

OPEN ACCESS

Volumen 56 | Number 01 | Nº of views of the article 7.859 | Nº of PDF downloads 2.780 | Article publication date 01/01/2013

Download PDF Castellano Citation Search in PubMed

Share in:

Go to another issue

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION Cognitive decline is related to different kind of biopsychosocial variables in the elderly.

AIM To identify which cognitive variables are important to differentiate between healthy elderly people and elderly people with cognitive impairment in order to propose a brief screening assessment for cognitive impairment in which education is not relevant.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS 264 subjects were divided into two groups taking into account the cutoff point 23/24 in the MEC, and all of them were assessed in cognitive functioning, sustained attention, cognitive plasticity, working memory, and verbal fluency.

RESULTS Discriminant analysis showed that the cognitive variables which best explain cognitive impairment were verbal fluency, sustained attention and cognitive plasticity. The area under the ROC curve for the verbal fluency task was 0.811 and for the sustained attention task was 0.777. A cutoff point with 10 words in the verbal fluency task showed a sensitivity of 74% and a specificity of 80% for healthy elderly people, while a cutoff point with 33 correct answers in the sustained attention task showed a sensitivity of 68.4% and a specificity of 68.6% for the same group.

CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that a high performance on verbal fluency and sustained attention protect against cognitive impairment in the elderly so that verbal fluency and sustained attention tasks are good tests for cognitive impairment screening purposes. KeywordsCognitive impairment Diagnostic value Sensitivity Specificity Sustained attention Verbal fluency CategoriesNeurogeriatría Neuropsicología

FULL TEXT (solo disponible en lengua castellana / Only available in Spanish)

Acceso directo al último número

Último Podcast

Original

Prediction of cognitive impairment in the elderly by analysing their performance in verbal fluency and in sustained attention