Assessment of naming by auditory confrontation in adults

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundOne of the most frequent symptoms in normal aging and in some neurodegenerative diseases is the difficulty to find words. Naming assessment is fundamental in a standard neuropsychological assessment. Even though visual difficulties have a high prevalence in older adults, visual confrontation tests have been utilized as the gold standard to detect the word finding impairment. In the Auditory Naming Test (ANT) different descriptions of objects are presented orally, and the patient should name the object described. Although there have not been published norms for adults for this test so far, the ANT has shown to be more sensitive than visual naming tests in mixed etiology dementia. The aim of this study was to analyze the ANT performance in older adults and generate normative data in Argentinian population (Spanish first language speakers).MethodCross‐sectional descriptive‐observational study. The participants were assessed with Spanish adaptation of ANT and Beck Depression Inventory. SPSS program was used and Pearson correlations, ANOVA, means and standard deviations were calculated.Result115 adults (79 women, mean age: 66.57 SD: 10.36, mean education: 13,86 SD: 5.04) without concomitant pathologies that potentially affect cognition participated were assessed (table 1). There were no differences in performance according to sex. A negative correlation with age was found (r ‐.289, p = .002). A positive correlation was found with education (r .308, p = .001). A later analysis revealed that this correlation only occurs in the group of 50‐59 years (r .605, p < .001) and 60‐69 years (r .405, p = .022).ConclusionIn the present study, the performance in the ANT of older adults was analyzed and normative data were generated. Age and education influence the performance of this test.