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

Abstract

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.

Screening for Executive Dysfunction with the Frontal Assessment Battery: Psychometric Properties Analysis and Representative Normative Data for Brazilian Older Adults

“…The normative study conducted by Beato et al (2012) stratified FAB performance on four groups based on education: 1-3, 4-7, 8-11 and 12 or more years, but had no age stratification, a different pattern than the one found in our study. However, differences in participants' characteristics may have contributed for the discrepancies, since Beato et al (2012) studied younger participants (starting at 44 years) and did not assess illiterate people. Our normative data in this sense are complementary to those previously published and the stratification of the groups by the age variable may contribute for the neuropsychological assessment, since executive/frontal lobe functions show a more pronounced decline after the seventy years (Salthouse, 2012).…”

“…The effect of education on test performance is a relevant factor for clinical use and was found in two previous Brazilian studies using the FAB (Beato et al, 2007;2012). The normative study conducted by Beato et al (2012) stratified FAB performance on four groups based on education: 1-3, 4-7, 8-11 and 12 or more years, but had no age stratification, a different pattern than the one found in our study. However, differences in participants' characteristics may have contributed for the discrepancies, since Beato et al (2012) studied younger participants (starting at 44 years) and did not assess illiterate people.…”

“…It was proposed by Dubois, Slachevsky, Litvan & Pillon (2000) as a short bedside cognitive battery for patients with frontal lobe dysfunction. Two Brazilian versions were proposed, one by Beato, Nitrini, Formigoni & Caramelli (2007) with preliminary data for the administration in healthy elderly patients and subsequent norms (Beato et al, 2012) and the other, slightly different, exposed in a dissertation, in which the validity and normative values of three screening tests including the FAB were developed in a representative sample of a Brazilian city (Moura, 2008).The test has been used in different clinical populations that usually present frontal lobe dysfunction, such as frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson's disease dementia, corticobasal degeneration, progressive supranuclear palsy, and multiple system atrophy (Dubois et al, 2000). Some studies have proposed its use for the differential diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) from frontotemporal dementia and found good (Slachevsky et al, 2004); however, these findings were inconsistent (Castiglione et al, 2008).…”

Vascular parkinsonism: a case series of 17 patients

“…Response was based on the percentage of reduction in the MDS-UPDRS scale 17 and the Hoehn-Yahr stage. Cognitive assessment was made by the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) 18,19 , the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) 20,21 , and the Executive Interview (EXIT25) 22,23 . Functional activities of daily living were assessed by the Pfeffer 24 scale and the Katz scale 25 .…”

“…The FAB scores (up to 18 points) were also subjected to variability in accordance with the formal years of schooling. Patients were considered exe cutively dysfunctional when they scored less than 8.6 points ( for 1-3 years of schooling), less than 10.1 points ( for 4-7 years of schooling), less than 11.6 points ( for 8-11 years of schooling), and less than 13 points ( for more than 12 years of schooling) 21 . Patients were assessed by the EXIT25 scale (up to 50 points) to determine if they had executive dysfunction.…”