Cued and Un-Cued Semantic Category Fluency in Older Adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Patients with switching deficits reportedly benefit more from categorical cueing for semantic category fluency than do patients with clustering deficits. We explored the contribution of language ability and executive control on the performance of semantic category fluency in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) by examining the effects of categorical cueing on the task. METHODS: Order adults with MCI (n=10) and normal controls (n=25) were compared on two versions of a semantic fluency task: a standard, un-cued version (SF) and a version in which subjects were cued (C-SF) with 4 subordinated categories. The scores and error types of SF and C-SF tasks were analyzed between two groups. Also, the correlation among the SF task, the C-SF task, and the confrontation naming task were examined. RESULTS: The performance of the sematic fluency task improved when categorical cues were included in both groups. However, the normal group showed significantly more improvement than the MCI group. Self-repetition errors in the SF task and categorical errors in the C-SF task occurred most frequently. The normal group showed significantly more errors than the MCI group in the C-SF task. There was a positive correlation among the SF task, the C-SF task, and the confrontation naming task. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study suggested that the MCI group has more difficulty in the semantic memory store rather than in the use of retrieval strategies. A combination of standard and cued semantic fluency tasks may help to confirm the underlying deficit of semantic fluency impairment.

Comparison of Cognitive Disorders in Dementia, Major Depressive Disorder and Alcohol Dependence Using the 7 Minute Screening Battery

OBJECTIVES: 'The 7 Minute Screen' was reported so sensitive to discriminate mild dementia. The test results were not influenced by the education, age and sex. Furthermore, the examiners needed no professional training. The tests covered the cognitive areas such as memory, oritention to time, verbal fluency and visuospatial or visuoconstructional abilities. The aims of this study were to evaluate the efficiency of 'The 7 Minute Screen' to discriminate differences between illnesses, and to analyze the factors affecting the test results. METHODS: 'The 7 Minute Screen' and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) were obtained from 36 inpatients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type (N=8), vascular dementia (N=8), Major depressive disorders (N=10) and alcohol dependence (N=10). The test battery was consisted of the Benton Temporal Orientation, the Enhanced Cued Recall, the Clock Drawing and the Category Fluency. RESULTS: 1) On the Benton Temporal Orientation, the highest mean scores were obtained in vascular dementia. On the memory, the lowest mean scores were obtained in vascular dementia, especially on the Uncued Recall in the dementia of the Alzheimer's type, and on the Cued Recall in vascular dementia. On the Clock Drawing, the lowest mean scores were obtained in the dementia of the Alzheimer's type. On the Category Fluency, the lowest mean scores were obtained in the dementia of the Alzheimer's type. 2) There was no statistically significant difference between 4 illness groups on the Benton Temporal Orientation. While there were no differences between 4 illness groups on total scores of memory and the Cued Recall, on the Uncued Recall showed significant difference between alcohol dependence and other illness groups (p<0.05). On the Clock Drawing, there was no significant difference between 4 illness groups. On the Category Fluency, there was significant difference between alcohol dependence and dementia of the Alzheimer's type and vascular dementia (p<0.001), and major depressive disorders (p<0.01). 3) In the dementia of the Alzheimer's type, the test scores of the Clocking Drawing were correlated positively with the education level (gamma=0.740, p<0.05), and negatively on the sex (gamma=-0.902, p<0.005), while in major depressive disorders, there was negative correlation between the Cued Recall and the age (gamma=-0.725, p<0.05). Otherwise, there were no significant correlation between the scores of individual tests with age, sex and educational level in vascular dementia and alcohol dependence. CONCLUSIONS: 'The 7 Minute Screen' seemed to be more superior to find out mild cognitive deficit than the Mini-Mental State Examination as well as it might be useful to discriminate differences between illnesses. However, some individual test results of a kind of illnesses could be influenced by the education level, age and sex.