Abstract
Clock-drawing tests are simple and rapid screening devices for dementia. It was observed that individuals <60 years of age showed similar performance with a digital prompt (“ . . .make the clock read 12:45”) or an analog prompt (“ . . .quarter to 1”), whereas individuals >70 years of age showed improved performance with an analog prompt. The digital prompt has routinely been used to force participants to recode the prompt via conceptualization. Differential scoring across a range of ages has likely derived from the advent and increase of digital clocks with the younger segment of the population. This implies the need for as-yet undetermined alteration in the nature of prompts to force recoding as the current younger population ages.
Keywords: clock-drawing test, cognition, aging, Alzheimer disease
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Contributor Information
Amy Chan, Center for Cellular Neurobiology and Neurodegeneration Research, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA.
Ruth Remington, Department of Nursing, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Massachusetts.
James Paskavitz, CNS Imaging, Perceptive Informatics Inc, Waltham, Massachusetts.
Thomas B. Shea, Center for Cellular Neurobiology and Neurodegeneration Research, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Massachusettes, Lowell, Massachusetts,Thomas_Shea@uml.edu .
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