The Rao’s Brief Repeatable Battery and Stroop test: normative values with age, education and gender corrections in an Italian population

• Published in: Multiple sclerosis Vol. 12; no. 6; pp. 787 - 793
• Main Authors: Amato, M P, Portaccio, E, Goretti, B, Zipoli, V, Ricchiuti, L, De Caro, M F, Patti, F, Vecchio, R, Sorbi, S, Trojano, M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Thousand Oaks, CA SAGE Publications 01.12.2006; Arnold; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Adult; Age Factors; Biological and medical sciences; Cognition; Cognition Disorders - diagnosis; Cognition Disorders - physiopathology; Degenerative and inherited degenerative diseases of the nervous system. Leukodystrophies. Prion diseases; Disorders of higher nervous function. Focal brain diseases. Central vestibular syndrome and deafness. Brain stem syndromes; Educational Status; Electrodiagnosis. Electric activity recording; Female; Frontal Lobe - physiology; Humans; Investigative techniques, diagnostic techniques (general aspects); Italy; Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Multiple Sclerosis - diagnosis; Multiple Sclerosis - physiopathology; Nervous system; Nervous system (semeiology, syndromes); Neurology; Neuropsychological Tests - standards; Reference Values; Reproducibility of Results; Sex Factors; Italy; cognitive impairment; normative values; multiple sclerosis; Stroop test; Brief Repeatable Battery; Executive function; Italian; Multiple sclerosis; Score test; Demography; Word; Cognitive disorder; Sex; Neuropsychological test; Inflammatory disease; Degenerative disease; Human; Nervous system diseases; Healthy subject; Color; Correction factor; Long term; Storage; Central nervous system disease; Instrument; Performance; Corrections
• ISSN: 1352-4585; 1477-0970
• DOI: 10.1177/1352458506070933

The Brief Repeatable Battery of Neuropsychological Tests (BRB) is by far the most widely used instrument to estimate cognitive dysfunction in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. However, the paucity of normative data currently limits its applicability. We administered the BRB to 200 healthy subjects to obtain normative values. Moreover, we assessed the influence of demographic factors on the test scores and calculated corrections for these relevant factors. To test executive functions not explored by the BRB, we also included the Stroop word-color task (ST). Higher educational level was associated with better performance on all the tests, except for the world list generation (WLG) and the ST, considering version A, and on Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) and Selective Reminding Test-Delayed (SRT-D), considering version B. Females performed better than males on the WLG considering version A, and on the SRT-Long Term Storage (SRT-LTS) and SRT-Consistent Long Term Retrieval (SRT-CLTR) considering version B. Increasing age was associated with worse performance on the ST in version A, and on the SRT-LTS, SRT-CLTR and WLG in version B. Our data can improve the applicability of the BRB for both clinical and research purposes.