Test-retest reliability of cortical language mapping in a patient with refractory focal epilepsy: 11 years later.

Electrical stimulation mapping (ESM) is considered the gold standard for identification of essential language cortex and is especially important in patients for whom classic language landmarks are less useful because of reorganization in response to epileptogenic or neoplastic cortex. However, little is known regarding the reliability of the procedure, particularly over extended time intervals. The authors present the case of a young man with refractory left temporal lobe epilepsy in the setting of a low-grade left temporal tumor who had undergone intraoperative language mapping at age 14 years and repeat mapping at age 25. Results from both the initial ESM and the repeat ESM 11 years later revealed a positive auditory description naming site in the same location on the superior temporal gyrus, at the anterior aspect of the tumor. This case provides support for the reliability of ESM and underscores intraindividual reliability in the location of language cortex over a prolonged period.

Survey results regarding use of the Boston Naming Test: Houston, we have a problem.

Members of the National Academy of Neuropsychology were surveyed in 2005 to assess then current practices regarding Boston Naming Test (BNT) administration, interpretation, and reporting procedures. Nearly half of 445 respondents followed discontinuation rules that differed from instructions published with the test, and nearly 10% did not administer items in reverse order to achieve the required 8 consecutive item basal. Of further concern, between 40% and 55% of respondents indicated that they did not interpret BNT scores in light of linguistic and ethnic background, and over 25% reported that they did not consider educational level. Despite the fact that non-normal distribution of BNT test scores renders use of percentiles misleading, nearly 60% of respondents endorsed using percentiles when reporting BNT data. The implications of these results are discussed, and recommendations are provided.

Performance on Standard Indexes of Effort Among Patients with Dementia.

Assessment of response validity is an integral part of neuropsychological practice. Although many studies have demonstrated the efficacy of stand alone and embedded effort measures in a variety of medical and compensation-seeking contexts, much less is known about the robustness of these measures in elderly populations, particularly in patients with dementia. Although older adults may be viewed as less likely to intentionally feign symptoms for an external gain, there are a variety of other factors that could result in suboptimal effort, including fatigue, lack of interest or cooperation in the testing process, or failure to fully appreciate the implications of the assessment on treatment care and outcome. The current study examined the clinical utility of several stand alone and embedded effort measures including the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status Effort Index, Trail-Making Test Ratio, Rey 15-Item Test, and the Test of Memory Malingering in a sample of patients with dementia. Results found that the majority of effort indexes demonstrated unacceptably high false-positive error rates with specificity levels as high as 83%. These findings demonstrate the need for caution in interpreting effort measure performance in dementia samples due to the fact that despite their best effort, many patients with dementia fail effort measures and are at risk for being misclassified.

Examination of various WMS-III logical memory scores in the assessment of response bias.

The assessment of response validity during neuropsychological evaluation is an integral part of the testing process. Research has increasingly focused on the use of "embedded" effort measures (derived from standard neuropsychological tasks) because they do not require additional administration time and are less likely to be identified as effort indicators by test takers because of their primary focus as measures of cognitive function. The current study examined the clinical utility of various WMS-III Logical Memory scores in detecting response bias, as well as the Rarely Missed Index, an embedded effort indicator derived from the WMS-III Logical Memory Delayed Recognition subtest. The Rarely Missed Index cut-off only identified 24.1% of 63 non-credible participants (at >/=90% specificity in 125 credible patients), and cut-offs for other Logical Memory variables were in fact found to be more sensitive to non-credible performance. A new indicator, consisting of the weighted combination of the two most sensitive Logical Memory subtest scores (Logical Memory II raw score and Logical Memory Delayed Recognition raw score), was associated with 53% to 60% sensitivity, and thus may be an effective adjunct when utilized in conjunction with other validated effort indicators and collateral information in identifying non-credible performance.