ABSTRACT

Slowed processing speed is part of normal aging but also a symptom of many diseases, including dementia. A Quick Test of Cognitive Speed (AQT) consists of three conditions: color naming (AQT1), form naming (AQT2) and dual color-form naming (AQT3) and offers a user-friendly assessment of processing speed that is used internationally to identify cognitive impairment in elderly patients. Appropriate age-norms have however been lacking. This study provides regression-based norms derived from a Swedish sample of 158 cognitively healthy 80 to 94-year olds. The results show age effects in all three conditions, a non-linear education effect in AQT1, and age by gender interactions in AQT2 and AQT3: men performed worse with increasing age, but women remained on a par. However, irrespective of age and gender, AQT2 and AQT3 mean raw and predicted scores were slower than the hitherto recommended cutoff criteria for suspected cognitive impairment.

摘要

处理速度减慢是正常衰老的一部分，也是许多疾病的症状，包括痴呆症。认知速度快速测试 (AQT) 包含三个条件：颜色命名 (AQT1)、形式命名 (AQT2) 和双色形式命名 (AQT3)，并提供国际上用于识别的用户友好的处理速度评估老年患者的认知障碍。然而，缺乏适当的年龄规范。这项研究提供了基于回归的规范，这些规范来自瑞典的 158 名 80 至 94 岁认知健康的样本。结果显示了所有三种情况下的年龄效应，AQT1 中的非线性教育效应，以及 AQT2 和 AQT3 中性别相互作用的年龄效应：随着年龄的增长，男性表现更差，但女性保持同等水平。然而，无论年龄和性别，