title: Visuospatial characteristics of an elderly Chinese population: results from the WAIS-R block design test.
abstract: Visuospatial deficits have long been recognized as a potential predictor of dementia, with visuospatial ability decline having been found to accelerate in later stages of dementia. We, therefore, believe that the visuospatial performance of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia (Dem) might change with varying visuospatial task difficulties. This study administered the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) Block Design Test (BDT) to determine whether visuospatial ability can help discriminate between MCI patients from Dem patients and normal controls (NC). Results showed that the BDT could contribute to the discrimination between MCI and Dem. Specifically, simple BDT task scores could best distinguish MCI from Dem patients, while difficult BDT task scores could contribute to discriminating between MCI and NC. Given the potential clinical value of the BDT in the diagnosis of Dem and MCI, normative data stratified by age and education for the Chinese elderly population are presented for use in research and clinical settings.
authors.affiliation: Center on Ageing Psychology, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing, China ; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Shufei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: Center on Ageing Psychology, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xinyi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Center on Ageing Psychology, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing, China ; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Center on Ageing Psychology, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
keywords: WAIS-R block design test; dementia; mild cognitive impairment; normative data; visuospatial characteristics