Frontal assessment battery in a Brazilian sample of healthy controls: normative data.

OBJECTIVE To show data on the performance of healthy subjects in the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), correlating with gender, age, education, and scores in the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). METHODS Two hundred and seventy-five healthy individuals with mean age of 66.4 ± 10.6 years-old were evaluated. Mean total FAB scores were established according to the educational level. RESULTS Mean total FAB scores according to the educational level were 10.9 ± 2.3, for one to three years; 12.8 ± 2.7, for four to seven years; 13.8 ± 2.2, for eight to 11 years; and 15.3 ± 2.3, for 12 or more years. Total FAB scores correlated significantly with education (r=0.47; p<0.0001) and MMSE scores (r=0.39; p<0.0001). No correlation emerged between FAB scores, age, and gender. CONCLUSION In this group of healthy subjects, the Brazilian version of the FAB proved to be influenced by the education level, but not by age and gender.