Normative verbal and non-verbal memory test scores for Australian women aged 56-67.
OBJECTIVE
To establish normative data for tests of verbal and non-verbal memory for midlife Australian-born women, and in so doing investigate factors which contribute to variation in test performance.


METHODS
Two hundred and fifty-seven healthy women aged 56-67 years (mean age 60), who are participating in the Melbourne Women's Midlife Longitudinal Health Project, were administered two word list learning tasks, a story recall task (the East Boston Memory Test) and the Faces subtest from the Wechsler Memory Scale III as part of a larger neuropsychological battery. Word list learning tasks consisted of either 16 semantically related words, derived from the California Verbal Learning Test II, or a list of 10 unrelated words. Mood was assessed by the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression questionnaire.


RESULTS
Education was significantly related to memory performance and there was a non-significant trend for test scores to decline with age. Mood was unrelated to test performance. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated a clear distinction between verbal and non-verbal memory performances. Mean scores were stratified by education (less than 12 years vs. 12 or more years) and age (56-59 vs. 60-67 years), and scaled normative data were constructed for all the tests.


CONCLUSIONS
This study provides education-based normative data for tests of verbal and non-verbal memory for midlife Australian women. The establishment of population-based normative data will facilitate future investigations of ageing and dementia in Australian women.
Clark
Margaret S
MS
Office for Gender and Health, Charles Connibere Building, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, 3050, Australia. msclark@unimelb.edu.au
Dennerstein
Lorraine
L
Elkadi
Shaymaa
S
Guthrie
Janet R
JR
Bowden
Stephen C
SC
Henderson
Victor W
VW
D000368:Aged; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004522:Educational Status; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014705:Verbal Behavior