Effects of educational background on verbal fluency task performance in older adults with Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment
Effects of educational background on verbal fluency task performance in older adults with Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment
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DOI：
10.1017/s1041610210000839
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发表时间：
2010-09-01
影响因子：
7
通讯作者：
Iguchi, Akihisa
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kawano, Naoko;Umegaki, Hiroyuki;Iguchi, Akihisa
背景资料：以往的研究表明，言语流畅性测试（VFT）是阿尔茨海默病（AD）认知功能障碍的敏感指标。然而，其他研究表明，在正常老年人群中，教育程度对表现有显着影响。为了检验VFT作为AD筛查工具的实用性，有必要研究教育不仅在认知完整人群中而且在早期AD患者人群中的效果。方法：AD患者（n=345）和轻度认知障碍（MCI）遗忘型个体（n=123）被要求产生尽可能多的属于以下类别的单词：动物”和以“[ka]”开头的音节日语“假名”脚本。为了确定在调整年龄和认知状态后，教育对AD早期VFT表现的影响，我们对396名包括遗忘型MCI和AD的个体进行了多元回归分析。在调整了患者的年龄、性别和认知状态后，受教育年限与类别流畅性测试分数显著相关，结论：本研究结果表明，A类流利性不仅反映了AD的特异性变化，还反映了教育背景的变化。这些结果表明，使用类别流畅性任务筛选受试者的风险发展为AD，而不考虑受试者的教育背景的局限性。
Background: Previous studies have shown that the verbal fluency test (VFT) is a sensitive measure of cognitive dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, other studies have shown that the performances were significantly influenced by education in the normal elderly population. In order to examine the utility of the VFT as a tool for screening for AD, it is necessary to study the effect of education not only in the cognitively intact population but also in the population of early AD patients.Methods: Patients with AD (n=345) and individuals with amnestic type of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (n=123) were asked to generate as many words as possible belonging to a category "animal" and beginning with " [ka]" in syllabic Japanese " kana" script. In order to determine the education effect after adjusting for age and cognitive state on the VFT performance in early stage of AD, we performed multiple regression analysis with 396 individuals including both amnestic MCI and AD.Results: After adjusting for patients' age, sex, and cognitive state, the years of education were significantly related to category fluency test scores, but not significantly related to letter fluency test scores.Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that a category fluency performance reflected not only AD-specific changes but also educational background. These results suggest the limitation of using the category fluency task for screening subjects at risk for developing AD without taking subjects' educational background into consideration.