ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The story recall test (SRT) is one of the most reliable neuropsychological assessments for evaluating verbal memory function in order to distinguish between individuals with normal aging, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's disease (AD). The SRT is analogous to the logical memory test in Wechsler Memory Scale-III, which has recently been developed and standardized to apply to older adults in Korea. The purpose of this study was to examine the usefulness of the SRT and its ability to discriminate between normal cognitive aging and patients with MCI or AD. METHODS: One hundred and twelve patients with MCI, 97 patients with AD, and 53 healthy elderly adults participated in this study. The SRT was compared with the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR), Global Deterioration Scale (GDS), Korean version of the Mini Mental State Examination (K-MMSE), and the Korean version of the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (K-HVLT). RESULTS: The SRT was well-correlated with the dementia rating scales and the K-HVLT. However, the sensitivity and specificity of the SRT was greatly influenced by the level of education of the subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The SRT is a sensitive measurement of verbal memory function that can be used in clinical settings to discriminate between normal memory functioning and the very early and moderate stages of AD in a Korean population. Moreover, it is important to recognize that the SRT is more appropriate for subjects with a high level of education rather than a low level of education to differentiate normal cognitive aging from MCI or AD.
Subject(s)
Alzheimer Disease/diagnosis , Alzheimer Disease/physiopathology , Cognition Disorders/diagnosis , Cognition Disorders/physiopathology , Mental Recall/physiology , Neuropsychological Tests , Verbal Behavior/physiology , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Alzheimer Disease/psychology , Analysis of Variance , Cognition Disorders/psychology , Discrimination, Psychological , Female , Humans , Korea , Male , Mental Status Schedule , Middle Aged , Neuropsychological Tests/standards , ROC Curve , Reproducibility of Results , Retrospective Studies , Verbal Learning/physiologyABSTRACT
A common test for the assessment of hemispatial neglect is the line bisection test. A recent modification of the task has been reported wherein subjects place a mark at either 25% or 75% of line length ('quadrisection'). In a previous study, we suggested that line quadrisection might entail iteration of two steps involved in standard line bisection: (1) finding the midpoint of the entire line, and then (2) bisecting the half-line segment between the adjudged midpoint and the line end ipsilateral to the target quadrisection point. The present study investigated eye movement patterns during line quadrisection in order to test this hypothesis. Twenty normal volunteers determined the left or right quadrisection point of a horizontal line while their eye movements were recorded using two-dimensional video-oculography. Analysis revealed that, like the results of previous studies on bisection, most normal subjects fixate the central portion of the line segment before reaching the target area during the quadrisection task. Normal subjects' eye movements during quadrisection performance share a number of features with line bisection and provide support for the two-step processing hypothesis.
