The Usefulness of The Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) for Assessing Cognitive Functions in the Elderly: a Pilot Study

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: We selected a computerized neuropsychological test, the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB), along with other conventional neuropsychological tests. The aim of this study was to assess CANTAB's usefulness in diagnosing dementia in the elderly and to compare it with conventional neuropsychological assessment kits. METHODS: We recruited 17 dementia patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or vascular dementia for the dementia group and 52 healthy persons who met our criteria for the control group. We administered four CANTAB subtests to assess their cognitive functions along with the conventional Seoul Neuropsychological Screening Battery, which includes the Rey-Osterreith Complex Figure Test (RCFT) to assess visual memory. The four CANTAB subtests chosen were big/little circle (BLC), paired associates learning (PAL), spatial recognition memory (SRM), and spatial span (SSP). RESULTS: The dementia group showed impairment on the PAL and SRM tasks. The results of the other two subtests were not different between the two groups. The mean adjusted total errors on the PAL task was higher in the dementia group (130.88) than in the control group (51.38), which was statistically significant (p<0.01). The percentage of correct response on the SRM task was lower in the dementia group (58.75%) than in the control group (67.25%), also statistically significant (p=0.03). We also compared the correlations of the CANTAB subtests with the RCFT parameters (immediate recall, delayed recall, and recognition). Again, the results showed that the PAL task correlated well with these three parameters (r=-0.59, -0.60, and -0.56, respectively). CONCLUSION: The CANTAB was useful for assessing cognition in the elderly. In particular, the PAL task, which correlated well with the RCFT parameters, can be used to assess visual memory. It showed to be a valuable tool in diagnosing dementia.