Visual Memory Testing in Older Adults with Age-Related Visual Decline: A Measure of Memory Performance or Visual Functioning?

Abstract

Although we know that vision is correlated with memory performance in older adults, the implications for this in terms of neuropsychological assessment have not been investigated. Relationships among age, visual acuity, and visual and verbal memory in 89 community dwelling volunteers aged 60 to 87 years were examined. Vision was tested using the Landolt C and visual and verbal memory were assessed via the Visual Reproduction (VR) and Word List (WL) subtests from the Wechsler Memory Scale, Third Edition (WMS-III; Wechsler, 1997), respectively. Significant correlations were observed between vision and the VR and WL tasks. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that vision significantly increased the R2 for VR and WL after controlling for age and education. The effect of vision was not specific to visual memory. We conclude that vision is correlated with general memory function in older adults, and is not modality specific. This study was funded by the Australian Research Council and the NHMRC grant (Ref. 987100). The participation of the men and women who took part in this study is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Maria Borzycki, Jason Tang and Barry Meyerson for assisting with recruitment and data collection.