Neuropsychological profiles between older adults with and without neurocognitive disorders

COMESAÑA, ANA; GARCÍA, MATÍAS JONÁS

Trends in Psychology

Sociedade Brasileira de Psicologia

Año: 2021

Objective: To provide evidence about the neuropsychological profiles of older people with andwithout neurocognitive disorders (NCDs). Methods: A sample of 245 people older than 60 years(X: 69 and DS 6.3), with an education level of 7 years or less, participated. A neuropsychologicalassessment was carried out to evaluate cognitive functioning, and for the analysis of the data,several groups were formed according to the presence or absence of neurocognitive disorders.Analysis of differences of means (ANOVA) and Kruskal-Wallis H tests were used to comparethe performance of the groups in neuropsychological tests. Results: The main results showedthat there is an association between groups due to impairment with age [t (245) =, 20; p = .00]and education level [t (245) = -, 18; p = .01]. Phonological Verbal Fluency (VF) and TrailMaking Test (TMT) A and B tests were shown to be influenced by education level. Age was afactor that was associated with Semantic VF, TMT A, and B, being a better factor to explain thechanges in the TMT than the education level. The differences between the groups in theperformance in the neuropsychological tests were significant for all the tasks used. Conclusions:This study helped establish a neuropsychological profile of older adults in the area, as well asdifferentiating those with signs of NCD from those who were healthy, which will allow thedesign of health policies to address this problem.