Using neuropsychological test performance to identify Alzheimer’s disease at a South African memory clinic

Cross-cultural effects on neuropsychological and cognitive test performance may mean that normative data obtained from North American and European samples do not apply to the South African population. There is a need for normative studies on the South African population in order to effectively test individuals on, for instance, neuropsychological tests such as those used to identify Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This study describes the performance of three groups of South African individuals on the battery of neuropsychological tests routinely used at Groote Schuur Hospital’s Memory Clinic. Participants were 29 healthy volunteer young adults (aged 18 to 25 years); 25 healthy volunteer older adults (65 years and older); and 24 Memory Clinic patients (65 years and older) with an independent diagnosis of possible/probable AD. All participants were administered the CLOX executive clock drawing task, verbal fluency and category naming tests, the Rey Auditory-Verbal Learning Test, the Rey Osterreith Complex Figure Test, tests of forward and backward digit span, and the Trail Making Test. Results show that this test battery is useful in discriminating between healthy and demented older adults in South Africa. Further, this study provides a first step toward collecting normative data for older South African adults on some of the most commonly-used memory clinic neuropsychological tests.