Use of the visual form discrimination test with geriatric urban medical inpatients

Abstract

The suitability of Benton's Visual Form Discrimination Test (VFD) for detecting cognitive dysfunction among urban geriatric medical inpatients was investigated in a pilot study of 61 patients. Significantly higher VFD scores were found in a group of cognitively intact subjects than were found in a group of demented subjects. Both groups, however, demonstrated lower mean scores than were reported in the original normative sample. At the 90% and 80% specificity levels, sensitivity levels of 67% and 74% were found respectively. The VFD appears to be a promising tool for assessing cognitive functioning in geriatric medical patients.