Relationship among the Performances of Subjective Memory, Objective Memory, and Naming in Healthy Elderly Adults

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify relationships performances among subjective memory, objective memory, and naming of healthy elderly adults. Methods: A total of 77 healthy elderly adults aged 65 or older in South Korea participated in this study. Subjective Memory Complaints Questionnaire was used to evaluate the subjective memory loss of the elderly, and the Seoul Verbal Learning Test was used to evaluate objective memory. The Korean version of Boston Naming Test was used as a confrontation naming task and Controlled Oral Word Association Test was used as a generative naming task. Results: First, the subjective memory and objective memory of the healthy elderly adults showed a significant correlation, and the naming performances of the healthy elderly adults showed a significant correlation with the recall ability of the objective memory. In addition, it could be seen that the ‘supermarket’ category of the generative naming was a task that reflected both subjective and objective memory of the general elderly. Conclusion: The results of this study are meaningful in that they have identified the usefulness of subjective memory reporting at clinical sites and in that they have presented basic data on the subjective·objective memory and the naming performances of healthy elderly adults.