A study on the value of the serial position effect combined with delayed recall of auditory verbal learning test in distinguishing elderly patients with different levels of cognitive impairment / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the diagnostic value of the serial position effect combined with delayed recall of auditory verbal learning test in diagnosing the elderly patients with different levels of cognitive impairment.Methods:A total of 310 subjects were enrolled and divided into three groups the normal control group(NC group, n=128), the mild cognitive impairment group(MCI group, n=133)and the mild Alzheimer's disease group(mild AD group, n=149)matched for gender, age and education level.Comprehensive neuro-psychological tests were performed on all subjects, and the Auditory Verbal Learning Test-Huashan version(AVLT-H)was used to analyze the serial position effect.Results:There were significant differences in the primacy effect of the second and third time of immediate recall, short-term and long-term delayed recall among the three groups( P<0.05), but no difference was found in the recency effect between the MCI and mild AD groups( P>0.05). The long-term delayed primacy effect combined with the short-term delayed recall showed a better validity to distinguish those elderly subjects with different levels of cognitive impairment than other memorial indexes, and the correlative sensitivity and specificity were 83.21% and 71.43%(NC group vs.MCI group), 85.71% and 92.86%(NC group vs.mild AD group), 66.67% and 75.57%(MCI group vs.mild AD group), respectively. Conclusions:The long-term delayed primacy effect combined with the short-term delayed recall can assist in distinguishing elderly patients with different levels of cognitive impairment.