Normative data for eight verbal fluency measures in older Danish adults

ABSTRACT

Verbal fluency tests are quickly administered, easy to use, and regularly used in the neuropsychological assessment. The aim of this study was to present regression-based reference data for eight different verbal fluency tests in a Danish sample (aged 60–96 years) to determine the influence of age, gender, and education on test-performances. The results showed that age and education were significantly associated with both categories, lexical and alternating fluency tests, and gender had a significant impact on two tests. All tests were significantly correlated, but there was a much stronger association between tests of the same type (lexical versus category) than between different types of tests indicating that various fluency tasks draw on different cognitive abilities. Specific patterns of impairment can be analyzed using these normative data and may be important in the assessment of dementia spectrum disorders.

KEYWORDS:

• Verbal fluency
• category fluency
• lexical fluency
• alternating fluency
• normative data
• healthy subjects

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Selma Nielsen, Rune Nielsen, Caroline Ripa, Henrik V Mortensen, Rikke Andreasen, Bodil Dahl Henriksen, Vibeke Brønniche, Gry J Madsen, Moa Gustafsson, Susanne Overgaard, Anne-Mette Guldberg and Nadia F Bærnthsen for their assistance with data collection. The Danish Dementia Research Centre is supported by grants from the Danish Health Foundation and the Danish Ministry of Health

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.