Introduction Repeated sports-related concussion has been associated with cognitive deficits, like other forms of traumatic brain injury. Football speed players (FSP; e.g., quarterbacks) are at greater risk of cognitive impairment compared to football non-speed players (FNP). Verbal fluency is typically comprised of two tasks: letter fluency (LF) and semantic fluency (SF). Verbal clustering (production of continuous words belonging to the same category or subcategory) and switching (abandoning an exhausted semantic cluster to a new one in order to produce more words) reflect executive control and strategy use. We examined LF, SF, as well as LF and SF switching and clustering performance in retired FSP, FNP, and healthy comparison (HC) participants. Methods The sample consisted of 28 HC, 17 retired FSP, and 53 retired FNP. ANOVAs were conducted to determine group differences on LF, SF, switching, and clustering. FSP and FNP did not differ in concussion frequency. Results We found the HC group outperformed the FSP group in LF, p = 0.042, ηp2 = 0.07. For SF, the HC and FNP groups outperformed the FSP group, p = 0.013, ηp2 = 0.09. Furthermore, we found the HC group outperformed both football groups in SF switching, p = 0.000, ηp2 = 0.17. Conclusion As expected, the HC group outperformed the FSP group on LF and SF. Also, the FNP group outperformed the FSP group on SF. Interestingly, FSP displayed generally worse performances, supporting the notion that their experience of sub-concussive blows puts them at greater risk for cognitive impairment. Further investigation is needed with larger sample sizes to evaluate SF and other cognitive deficits in the FSP participants.
Objective Confrontation naming tests are used to examine an individual’s lexical retrieval. We examined the relationship of perceived workload and acculturation in three ethnic groups’ Cordoba Naming Test (CNT) performance. Methods The sample consisted of 32 Latinx, 11 Caucasians, and 10 Asian; all neurologically and psychologically healthy residents. All participants completed the CNT and subscales of the Abbreviated Multidimensional Acculturation Scale (AMAS) in English. AMAS was used to measure acculturation and the NASA-Task Load Index (NASA TLX) measured perceived workload. Results The CNT showed that the Caucasian group outperformed the Latinx group, p = 0.024, ηp2 = 0.14. However, the Latinx group reported better CNT performance compared to the Caucasian group, p = 0.023, ηp2 = 0.14. No differences were found between groups on the AMAS. Finally, we found a significant relationship between CNT and NASA-TLX subscales (i.e., performance, mental demand, effort, frustration, & overall perceived workload) in the Latinx group, r = −0.562 to −0.398, p < 0.05. Discussion Results showed the Latinx group demonstrated worse CNT performance compared to the Caucasian group. To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate confrontation naming performance in an ethnically diverse sample. Furthermore, we found the Latinx group reported a higher perceived performance on the CNT compared to Caucasians. Our results indicated a relationship between CNT performance and perceived workload in our Latinx sample as opposed to the Caucasian and Asian groups. Future research is needed with a larger sample size; moreover, additional research should investigate interactions between perceived workload, acculturation, and other cultural variables (e.g., bilingualism) in the interpretation of test performance in diverse ethnic groups.
Objective The Dot Counting Test (DCT) is a performance validity test. McCaul et al. (2018) recently revised the DCT cut-off score from ≥17 to 13.80; we evaluated the new cut-off in non-Latinx Caucasian and Caucasian Latinx traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivors and healthy comparison (HC) participants. Method The sample consisted of 37 acute TBI (ATBI; 11 Caucasian Latinx; 26 non-Latinx Caucasian), 27 chronic TBI (CTBI; 10 Caucasian Latinx; 17 non-Latinx Caucasian), and 55 HC (29 Caucasian Latinx; 26 non-Latinx Caucasian) participants. Results An ANCOVA, controlling for age, revealed no DCT E-scores differences between groups. Both the conventional and the new cut-off scores had different failure rates in ATBI (conventional cut-off: 0%; PNC: 16%), CTBI (conventional cut-off: 7%; PNC: 15%), and HC (conventional cut-off: 10%; PNC: 11%) participants. For the Caucasian Latinx group (conventional cut-off: 6%; PNC: 12%) and the non-Latinx Caucasian group (conventional cut-off: 6%; PNC: 14%), demonstrated different failure rates across cut-off scores. Group differences were found with the McCaul et al. (2018) cut-off and the conventional cut-off. Also, chi-squared analysis revealed non-Latinx Caucasian participants with ATBI had greater failure rates than Caucasian Latinx participants with ATBI. Conclusion The new DCT cut-off score resulted in greater failure rates in TBI survivors. Also, this effect appears to be most pronounced in non-Latinx Caucasian persons with ATBI. Future work should investigate possible reasons for these differences so that more stringent DCT can be utilized in a way that provides less biased results for brain injury survivors across racial and ethnic groups.
Objective: Prospective memory (PM) involves remembering to carry out an intended action in the future and is impacted in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (ad). Subjective ratings have been used in reporting patient PM outcomes. This study examined the utility of subjective reports in predicting objective PM in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment (naMCI) and healthy older adults. Methods: Participants included 58 healthy controls (HC), 37 persons with aMCI, and 28 individuals with naMCI. Subjective reports were assessed using caregiver and participant ratings on the Prospective-Retrospective Memory Questionnaire. An objective PM measure was used during the neuropsychological assessment. Simple PM involves remembering to request any pill after a task. Complex PM involves remembering to request the correct number of pills after each task. Results: Linear regression analyses revealed that subjective caregiver and participant ratings predicted simple PM performance for only the HC group, where caregiver reports were unique predictors. Subjective caregiver and participant ratings were not predictive of complex PM performance in any of the groups. Conclusion: Results indicate that subjective caregiver reports were only predictive of healthy participants’ objective simple PM outcomes. This indicates that generally overall subjective ratings are not a substitute for actual PM outcomes in ad and MCI groups. In conclusion, researchers and clinicians should not rely solely on subjective reports in predicting objective outcomes.
Background: Prospective memory involves executing an intended action in the future. This cognitive ability declines in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease and affects everyday functioning. Prospective memory is usually assessed by asking participants to execute a single action in the future. We developed a complex prospective memory test that involves selecting the correct action to execute based on the context of the situation. In this study, we examined both types of prospective memory and their relationships with depression symptoms. Prospective memory involves significant cognitive effort, which could be dampened by depression symptoms.Method: Participants included healthy controls (n= 58) and persons with amnestic MCI (n= 28) and non-amnestic MCI (n= 36). Before testing, all participants were informed that they should request a pill after completing each of 10 neuropsychological tests that would be administered. Simple prospective memory was assessed using the total number of correct requests. They were also told that if the most recent test involved memorization, they should request one pill, and if it did not, they should request two pills. The number of correct contingency-based requests was used to assess complex prospective memory. The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) was used to measure depressive symptoms.Result: Analyses of variance revealed that the amnestic MCI group performed significantly worse in simple prospective memory compared to both the controls and the non-amnestic MCI group. The same pattern was found for complex prospective memory. We found that GDS scores did not predict prospective memory in any group. Conclusion:Overall, we found that older adults with objective memory deficits (amnestic MCI) had difficulties with both simple and complex prospective memory, while those with no memory impairment (controls and non-amnestic MCI) performed better on these tests. Importantly, depressive symptoms were not associated with performance on prospective memory tests for any of the groups. These findings suggest that prospective memory tests are useful for assessing MCI and are resistant to the impact of depressive symptoms.
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