title: Sensitive performance-based assessment of everyday action in older and younger adults.
abstract: Everyday function is compromised by mild cognitive changes in aging. These changes predict risk for future decline and dementia but remain poorly characterized, largely due to a scarcity of sensitive, objective measures.Twenty-seven younger adults and 25 non-demented older adults completed the Naturalistic Action Test (NAT), a performance-based measure of everyday action involving simple and complex tasks. Performance was coded for overt errors and subtle inefficiencies. Participants also completed self-report functional measures and cognitive tests. Mixed ANOVAs revealed that older adults made more subtle NAT errors with high task demands; groups did not differ in overt errors. Correlations did not reveal significant relations between self-report and NAT errors, but NAT performance was correlated with learning and recall.The NAT provides a promising tool for detecting subtle age-related changes and examining decline across levels of impairment. Self-report may lack sensitivity to subtle changes, and episodic memory changes underlie early functional disruption.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Temple University , Philadelphia , PA , USA.
authors.forename: Sarah Seligman
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Rycroft
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Temple University , Philadelphia , PA , USA.
authors.forename: Tania
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Giovannetti
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Temple University , Philadelphia , PA , USA.
authors.forename: Ross
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Divers
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Temple University , Philadelphia , PA , USA.
authors.forename: Jacob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hulswit
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000293:Adolescent; D000368:Aged; D000066492:Cognitive Aging; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Everyday function; aging; cognition; instrumental activities of daily living (IADL); mild cognitive impairment