Planning the Generation of Items on the Verbal Fluency Test is Crucial to the Final Result

Abstract

Among the variations of applying the verbal fluency test is the request to evoke as many words as possible, in one minute, from a semantic field or beginning with the same phoneme. Recent studies have affirmed that the total number of words evoked on the test does not discriminate groups of dementia, however the measures of agglomeration and commutation constitute a differential standard that supplies greater evidence for the evaluation of cognitive decline. In the task of generating items by semantic criteria, when the individual presents results similar to those of his age group, these conglomerates principally occur during the first seconds of recall. There is no information that the same occurs when the generation of names is by phonemic criteria. Neither do we have information about the effects of age and schooling relative to the quartile behavior. The objective of the study was to verify if there is a difference between the results obtained during the first 15 seconds and the other quartile of the verbal fluency test realized according to semantic and phonemic criteria and the impact of the production in the first quartile on the final result after one minute of the test. The study was realized with31 healthy individuals with an average age of 74 years (standard deviation6.67) and average schooling of 8.16 (standard deviation 5.27). Normal elderly were included according to the criteria of the Clinical Dementia Rating, Mental State Mini-exam and questionnaire AD-22. The individuals realized the verbal fluency tests according to verbal and phonemic criteria. Differences among the results of the first 15 seconds in the Semantic and Phonologic Verbal Fluency, when compared to the other quartile were verified, despite the variation of age and schooling. Performance in this quartile suffered a schooling influence in animal fluency, (rs = 0.588;p < 0.001). The first quartile responded for approximately 40% of the total generation of items in the two criteria. It is interesting to verify the cognition of healthy populations through practical criteria and easy to apply aiming to diagnose alterations. The absence of a schooling effect in the “frontal-executive” phase of the test should be replicated with an increased number of cases.