Department of Psychology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA.
Arch Clin Neuropsychol. 2013 Nov;28(7):721-31. doi: 10.1093/arclin/act058. Epub 2013 Aug 4.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the pattern of performance on letter and category fluency tests of individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Previous research has suggested that organization strategies, including "clustering" (i.e., groups of related words) and "switching" (i.e., shift from one cluster to another), are important for efficient verbal fluency performance. Participants were 25 individuals with single-domain amnestic MCI (aMCI), 49 with multidomain aMCI, 16 with non-amnestic MCI (naMCI), and 90 cognitively healthy older adults. Fluency performances were analyzed across two 30-s intervals for total words produced, cluster size, and switching. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with follow-up tests revealed that the single-domain aMCI group performed comparably with healthy controls on each dependent measure across both fluency tasks. In contrast, the multidomain aMCI group showed performance decrements in total words and switching production compared with healthy controls on both fluency tasks, whereas the naMCI group produced fewer words and switches on letter fluency. Each group generated more words and switches during the first 30-s on both fluency tasks, with the exception of the naMCI group, whose switching on letter fluency did not decrease as the task progressed. As indicated by the single-domain aMCI group's unimpaired performance, our findings demonstrate that verbal fluency performance decreases as domains beyond memory become impaired in MCI. Reduced switching ability, which has been linked to prefrontal executive functioning, contributed the most to the poorer performance of individuals with multidomain MCI and naMCI.
本研究旨在探讨轻度认知障碍(MCI)个体在字母和类别流畅性测试中的表现模式。先前的研究表明,组织策略,包括“聚类”(即相关词的组合)和“转换”(即从一个聚类切换到另一个聚类),对于有效的言语流畅性表现很重要。参与者包括 25 名单域遗忘型 MCI(aMCI)患者、49 名多域 aMCI 患者、16 名非遗忘型 MCI(naMCI)患者和 90 名认知健康的老年人。在两个 30 秒的间隔内分析了流畅性表现,包括总单词数、聚类大小和转换。方差分析(ANOVA)和后续测试显示,单域 aMCI 组在两个流畅性任务的每个因变量上的表现与健康对照组相当。相比之下,多域 aMCI 组在两个流畅性任务上的总单词数和转换产生方面的表现均不如健康对照组,而 naMCI 组在字母流畅性方面产生的单词和转换较少。每个组在两个流畅性任务的前 30 秒内生成的单词和转换都更多,除了 naMCI 组,其在字母流畅性上的转换没有随着任务的进行而减少。正如单域 aMCI 组未受损的表现所表明的那样,我们的研究结果表明,在 MCI 中,除了记忆之外的其他领域受损时,言语流畅性表现会下降。转换能力的下降与前额叶执行功能有关,这对多域 MCI 和 naMCI 患者的表现较差贡献最大。