Cross-Cultural Application of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS): Performances of Elderly Chinese Singaporeans

Abstract

There is a paucity of normative studies outside of North America and on elderly populations with very low education level. In the present study we examined the performance of poorly educated elderly on the Repeatable Battery Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) with 352 cognitively normal elderly Chinese persons living in the community in Singapore who were enrolled in the Singapore Longitudinal Ageing Study (SLAS). Those with no formal education performed significantly less well than those with some years of formal education across four of five RBANS indices as well as the Total Scale score. Age- and education-adjusted normative data for the RBANS were established for the sample. The means and standard deviations of each of 12 subtests raw scores, five Index scores and the Total Scale score were calculated and stratified by age and education. Data from the present study should considerably advance the clinical utility of the RBANS in Chinese geriatric evaluations in Singapore, and can serve as a reference source for poorly educated elderly Chinese from around the region and beyond.

Keywords:

• Normative studies
• Ageing
• Education
• Ethnicity

Acknowledgements

The study was supported by a research grant (No. 08/1/21/19/567) from the Biomedical Research Council, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (ASTAR).