9 Four-Year Practice Effects on the RBANS in a Longitudinal Study of Older Adults

Abstract

Objective:The Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) is one of the most widely used measures in neuropsychological assessment. Studies of practice effects on the RBANS have largely been limited to studies assessing one or two repeated assessments. The aim of the current study is to examine practice effects across four years after baseline in a longitudinal study of cognitively healthy older adults. Practice effects were estimated using a pseudo-replacement participants approach which has been previously applied in other aging studies.Participants and Methods:453 Participants from the Louisiana Aging Brain Study (LABrainS) completed the RBANS Form A on up to four annual assessments after a baseline evaluation. Practice effects were calculated using a modified participants-replacement method where scores of individuals who were administered RBANS Form A multiple times are compared to the baseline scores of matched participants with additional adjustment for attrition effects.Results:Practice effects were observed primarily in the immediate memory, delayed memory, and total score indices. For example, an increase of nearly half a standard deviation was observed for delayed memory.Conclusions:These findings extend past work on the RBANS and other neuropsychological batteries more broadly in showing the susceptibility of memory measures to practice effects. Given that memory and total score indices of the RBANS have the most robust relationships with diagnostic status and biomarkers for pathological cognitive decline, these findings raise concerns about the ability to recruit those at risk for decline from longitudinal studies using the same form of the RBANS for multiple years.