Assessment of the Rbans Visual and Verbal Indices in a Sample of Neurologically Impaired Elderly Participants

Abstract

With increases in the older adult population, brief assessments sensitive to dementia are essential. This study assessed the effectiveness of the verbal memory and visual processing indices proposed by Duff et al. (2009) to differentiate participants with neurological disorders. Participants included individuals diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI; n = 38), Alzheimer's disease (AD; n = 100), or Parkinson's disease (PD; n = 35), with ages ranging from 65–93 years. In addition, normal control participants (n = 100) within the same age range were used for comparison. ANOVA and posthoc analyses revealed that the normal control and AD groups were significantly different from all groups for Verbal and Visual Indices. However, the MCI and PD groups did not differ from each other. Predictive discriminant analysis (PDA) assessed classification rates of the groups, and the normal participants were classified best (63% to 92%). The AD group followed with percentages ranging from 64% to 76%. Specifically, when classifying the normal and AD groups using both Verbal and Visual Indices of the RBANS together, sensitivity was 92.0% (n = 92) and specificity was 79.0% (n = 79). Overall classification rates for this analysis were 85.5%. Overall, the RBANS Verbal and Visual Indices may provide additional information when working with neurologically impaired older adults, with overall classification rates ranging from 61.5% to 85.5%.

Keywords:

• Verbal memory
• Visual processing
• Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status
• RBANS

Acknowledgment

A portion of this data was presented at the International Neuropsychological Society annual meeting in Acapulco, Mexico, in 2010 (Morgan, Linck, Scott, & Adams, 2010).