This study aimed to explore the effects of age, education and gender on the performance of eight tests in the Korean version of the CERAD neuropsychological assessment battery and to provide normative information on the tests in the Korean elderly. The battery was administered to 618 healthy volunteers aged from 60 to 90. People with serious neurological, medical and psychiatric disorders, including dementia, were excluded. Multiple linear regression analyses were performed to assess the relative contribution of the demographic factors on the score of each cognitive test. Age, education, and gender were found to have significant effects on the performance of many tests in the battery. Based on these results, 4 overlapping age normative tables (60 to 74, 65 to 79, 70 to 84, and 75 to 90 years of age) with 3 educational strata (0 to 3 years, 4 to 6 years, and 7 years and more) for both genders are presented. The normative information will be useful for a clinical interpretation of the CERAD neuropsychological battery in Korean elderly as well as for comparing the performance of the battery across countries.

The prevalence of dementia in older people in Seoul appears to be somewhat lower than in rural areas of Korea. Considering the difficulties involved in establishing a diagnostic threshold for dementia, actual differences in dementia prevalence between Asian populations are probably minimal.

Age and educational level had a considerable influence on both Trail A and B. Our normative information on the Trail A will be useful in the elders with poor educational attainment and can be utilized for cross-cultural comparison of the Trail A performance. The fact that a large number of elders fail to complete Trail B indicates a limited applicability of Trail B in elderly population, particularly with poor educational background.

We demonstrated that ADAS-K is a reliable and valid instrument not only for AD diagnosis but also for evaluation of its severity.