Age-related psychomotor slowing as an important component of verbal fluency: evidence from healthy individuals and Alzheimer's patients.
Generalized psychomotor slowing is a characteristic of normal aging, and there is evidence suggesting that this feature is also central in dementia. The present article aims to evaluate the importance of psychomotor slowing as a factor underlying changes in the performance of verbal fluency tasks in normal and pathological aging. In study 1 reading and handwriting speed were used to predict performance on written and oral verbal fluency tasks (VFTs) in healthy elderly subjects (n = 20) and in patients of the Alzheimer type disease (n = 20). In study 2, spectrographic techniques were used to obtain reaction times, average of voice intensity and duration of single word production in young individuals (n = 20), healthy elderly subjects (n = 20), and in patients of the Alzheimer type disease (n = 7). Additionally, duration of single word production were also obtained. The results suggest that age-related psychomotor decline in word production speed is an important determinant of VFT.
Rodríguez-Aranda
Claudia
C
Dept of Psychology, University of Tromsø, 9037, Tromsø, Norway. claudia@psyk.uit.no
Waterloo
Knut
K
Sparr
Sigurd
S
Sundet
Kjetil
K
D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*