Correlation of Demographic Characteristics with Action Verbal Fluency Test in Elderly Community Residents

社區老人動作口語流暢測驗與人口學特徵之相關性

葉乙靜(I-Jin Yeh) ； 曾光佩(Guang-Pei Tseng) ； 姚林生(Lin-Sheng Yao)

《北市醫學雜誌》 2卷7期 (2005/07) Pp. 625-631

https://doi.org/10.6200/TCMJ.2005.2.7.05

摘要

Background and Purpose: Impairments in verbal fluency have been noted in various neurological and psychiatric disorders. Action Verbal Fluency Test (AFT) is a newly validated verbal fluency test that is used to assess semantic knowledge, retrieval ability and executive function. Recent studies suggest that AFT is sensitive to the integrity of fronto-subcortical circuit. Current study was undertaken to investigate the effects of age, education and gender on AFT performance in healthy elderly and to provide preliminary normative data in Taiwanese population. Method: One hundred and forty five community-dwelling, independently functioning individuals aged over 64 were tested on the AFT. Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) was used to screen for cognitive impairment. Subjects were asked to produce as many different things as possible that people do in one minute using their mother tongue. Results: The AFT score was significantly influenced by level of education (Pearson correlation coefficient r=0.44, p＜0.001). A difference in AFT performance was noted significantly between educational years group below 9 years and that above 9 years. When AFT scores were regressed on age, gender, mother tongue and education, education emerged as the sole significant variable (β=0.39, t=4.47, p＜0.001) for AFT score. Conclusion: Education attainment was significantly correlated with AFT score while age and sex did not significantly influence the performance of AFT.

關鍵字

口語流暢測驗 ； 動作口語流暢測驗 ； 台灣 ； 常模

並列摘要

Background and Purpose: Impairments in verbal fluency have been noted in various neurological and psychiatric disorders. Action Verbal Fluency Test (AFT) is a newly validated verbal fluency test that is used to assess semantic knowledge, retrieval ability and executive function. Recent studies suggest that AFT is sensitive to the integrity of fronto-subcortical circuit. Current study was undertaken to investigate the effects of age, education and gender on AFT performance in healthy elderly and to provide preliminary normative data in Taiwanese population. Method: One hundred and forty five community-dwelling, independently functioning individuals aged over 64 were tested on the AFT. Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) was used to screen for cognitive impairment. Subjects were asked to produce as many different things as possible that people do in one minute using their mother tongue. Results: The AFT score was significantly influenced by level of education (Pearson correlation coefficient r=0.44, p＜0.001). A difference in AFT performance was noted significantly between educational years group below 9 years and that above 9 years. When AFT scores were regressed on age, gender, mother tongue and education, education emerged as the sole significant variable (β=0.39, t=4.47, p＜0.001) for AFT score. Conclusion: Education attainment was significantly correlated with AFT score while age and sex did not significantly influence the performance of AFT.

並列關鍵字

verbal fluency ； action fluency ； Taiwan ； Normative data