The utility of Stroop task switching as a marker for early-stage Alzheimer's disease.
Past studies have suggested attentional control tasks such as the Stroop task and the task-switching paradigm may be sensitive for the early detection of dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT). The authors of the current study combined these tasks to create a Stroop switching task. Performance was compared across young adults, older adults, and individuals diagnosed with very mild dementia. Results indicated that this task strongly discriminated individuals with healthy aging from those with early-stage DAT. In a logistic regression analysis, incongruent error rates from the Stroop switching task discriminated healthy aging from DAT better than any of the other 18 cognitive tasks given in a psychometric battery.
Hutchison
Keith A
KA
Department of Psychology, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717-3340, USA. khutch@montana.edu
Balota
David A
DA
Duchek
Janet M
JM
Ducheck
Janet M
JM
D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D001288:Attention; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics; D011930:Reaction Time; D057190:Stroop Test / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014145:Trail Making Test