- Email: [email protected]
Mental retardation and neuropsychological functioning
Abstracts from the 19th Annual Meeting
759
co-factors including family support of treatment goals, the continuing need for staff training and institutional policy related to use of behavioral contingencies. Preliminary results suggest that the developmentally delayed client exhibiting concomitant psychiatric symptomatology demonstrated greater transitional resiliency than the developmentally delayed client manifesting concomitant neuropsychological impairment.
A-ystii, S. Mental Retardation and Neuropsychological Functioning. A representative sample (n = 258) of persons with mental retardation was investigated neuropsychologically in order to see the relation of level of retardation with neuropsychological functioning. Etiologies were classified foUowingly: genetic (65), other than genetic (pre- and perinatal, developmental disorders (97), and unidentified etiology (90). For six persons, the etiology and level of retardation was not yet confirmed. The sample consisted of 115 women, and 143 men. The age varied from 2 years up to 55 years. The level of retardation was subnormal (13), mild (87), moderate (92), gravis (37), and profound (23). A modification of the neuropsychological procedure based on earlier studies on brain-damaged and elderly people was uniform for the whole sample. The results showed significant differences between the mild, moderate, and the combined gravis/profound groups on all investigated neuropsychological functions, such as praxias and speech regulation of the motor act, tactile functions, visual functions, auditory receptive and expressive functions, productive speech, rhythm perception and production, higher cortical functions. The direction of the differences was as expected, the higher the intelligence the less neuropsychological disturbances and more skillful behavior. It needs to be studied more carefully,Xhelikely existing heterogeneity among the level of retardation and the structure of neuropsychological functioning at each level of retardation. Hummer, J. T., Crowell, T. A., & Van Wie, V. E. Neuropsychological Test Performance and Depressive Symptoms Among Elderly Patients in a VA Rehabilitative Nursing Home Care Setting: A Comparison of the "YoungOld" and "Old-Old." The present study examined the relationship of advancing age to cognitive performance and self-reported depressive symptoms among patients in a VA medical-surgical rehabilitative nursing home care setting. Ninety (90) consecutive male patients referred for neuropsychological evaluation were administered an orientation measure (Reality Orientation Questionnaire), subtests from the Consortium to Establish a Registry of Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) Neuropsychological Battery assessing verbal fluency, object naming, constructional praxis, and learning/immediate recall, delayed recall, and delayed recognition of a 10-item word list, along with the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). It was hypothesized that "old-old" patients (ages 76 and older) would obtain poorer performances on all neuropsychological measures, and higher GDS scores than "young-old" patients (ages 60-75). Results indicate that, irrespective of group differences in age, nearly one half of the sample (48%) obtained delayed recall scores in the range associated with probable impairment, by way of comparison with published norms (i.e., two or more SD units below the published mean for unimpaired controls). Further analysis via a series of one-way ANCOVAs (with educational level as a covariate) revealed nonsignificant group differences on the GDS, ROQ, and CERAD subtests with the exception of delayed recall. While the mean score difference in delayed recall was statistically significant, with old-old patients performing below young-old patients, the magnitude of the score differences was relatively small and of questionable practical importance.
759
co-factors including family support of treatment goals, the continuing need for staff training and institutional policy related to use of behavioral contingencies. Preliminary results suggest that the developmentally delayed client exhibiting concomitant psychiatric symptomatology demonstrated greater transitional resiliency than the developmentally delayed client manifesting concomitant neuropsychological impairment.
A-ystii, S. Mental Retardation and Neuropsychological Functioning. A representative sample (n = 258) of persons with mental retardation was investigated neuropsychologically in order to see the relation of level of retardation with neuropsychological functioning. Etiologies were classified foUowingly: genetic (65), other than genetic (pre- and perinatal, developmental disorders (97), and unidentified etiology (90). For six persons, the etiology and level of retardation was not yet confirmed. The sample consisted of 115 women, and 143 men. The age varied from 2 years up to 55 years. The level of retardation was subnormal (13), mild (87), moderate (92), gravis (37), and profound (23). A modification of the neuropsychological procedure based on earlier studies on brain-damaged and elderly people was uniform for the whole sample. The results showed significant differences between the mild, moderate, and the combined gravis/profound groups on all investigated neuropsychological functions, such as praxias and speech regulation of the motor act, tactile functions, visual functions, auditory receptive and expressive functions, productive speech, rhythm perception and production, higher cortical functions. The direction of the differences was as expected, the higher the intelligence the less neuropsychological disturbances and more skillful behavior. It needs to be studied more carefully,Xhelikely existing heterogeneity among the level of retardation and the structure of neuropsychological functioning at each level of retardation. Hummer, J. T., Crowell, T. A., & Van Wie, V. E. Neuropsychological Test Performance and Depressive Symptoms Among Elderly Patients in a VA Rehabilitative Nursing Home Care Setting: A Comparison of the "YoungOld" and "Old-Old." The present study examined the relationship of advancing age to cognitive performance and self-reported depressive symptoms among patients in a VA medical-surgical rehabilitative nursing home care setting. Ninety (90) consecutive male patients referred for neuropsychological evaluation were administered an orientation measure (Reality Orientation Questionnaire), subtests from the Consortium to Establish a Registry of Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) Neuropsychological Battery assessing verbal fluency, object naming, constructional praxis, and learning/immediate recall, delayed recall, and delayed recognition of a 10-item word list, along with the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). It was hypothesized that "old-old" patients (ages 76 and older) would obtain poorer performances on all neuropsychological measures, and higher GDS scores than "young-old" patients (ages 60-75). Results indicate that, irrespective of group differences in age, nearly one half of the sample (48%) obtained delayed recall scores in the range associated with probable impairment, by way of comparison with published norms (i.e., two or more SD units below the published mean for unimpaired controls). Further analysis via a series of one-way ANCOVAs (with educational level as a covariate) revealed nonsignificant group differences on the GDS, ROQ, and CERAD subtests with the exception of delayed recall. While the mean score difference in delayed recall was statistically significant, with old-old patients performing below young-old patients, the magnitude of the score differences was relatively small and of questionable practical importance.