Normative verbal and non-verbal memory test scores for Australian women aged 56-67
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. Two hundred and fifty-seven healthy women aged 56-67 years (mean age 60), who are participating in the Melbo...
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Published in | Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry Vol. 38; no. 7; p. 532 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
England
01.07.2004
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get more information |
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Summary: | 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.
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.
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.
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. |
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ISSN: | 0004-8674 |
DOI: | 10.1080/j.1440-1614.2004.01406.x |