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Age-related psychomotor slowing as an important component of verbal fluency

Evidence from healthy individuals and Alzheimer’s patients

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Abstract

Generalized psychomotor slowing is a characteristic of normal aging, and there is evidence suggesting that this feature is also central in dementia. The present article aims to evaluate the importance of psychomotor slowing as a factor underlying changes in the performance of verbal fluency tasks in normal and pathological aging. In study 1 reading and handwriting speed were used to predict performance on written and oral verbal fluency tasks (VFTs) in healthy elderly subjects (n = 20) and in patients of the Alzheimer type disease (n = 20). In study 2, spectrographic techniques were used to obtain reaction times, average of voice intensity and duration of single word production in young individuals (n = 20), healthy elderly subjects (n = 20), and in patients of the Alzheimer type disease (n = 7). Additionally, duration of single word production were also obtained. The results suggest that age-related psychomotor decline in word production speed is an important determinant of VFT.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all the patients and the participants involved in the study for their cooperation. Special thanks are due to Torgeir Engstad and to the staff of the outpatient clinic at the Department of Geriatrics of the University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, for their collaboration. We thank Erik Eldevik for his contribution to the acoustic analyses in Study 2. We also thank Kari Bjerkås from the Department of Neurology of the University Hospital of North Norway, Tromsø, for her technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Psychology, University of Tromsø, 9037, Tromsø, Norway

    Claudia Rodríguez-Aranda & Knut Waterloo

  2. Dept. of Neurology, University Hospital of North Norway, 9038, Tromsø, Norway

    Knut Waterloo

  3. Dept. of Geriatrics, University Hospital of North Norway, 9038, Tromsø, Norway

    Sigurd Sparr

  4. Dept. of Psychology, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1094, Blindern , 0317, Oslo, Norway

    Kjetil Sundet

Authors
  1. Claudia Rodríguez-Aranda
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  2. Knut Waterloo
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  3. Sigurd Sparr
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  4. Kjetil Sundet
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Claudia Rodríguez-Aranda.

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Received in revised form: 2 March 2006

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX A

 
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Rodríguez-Aranda, C., Waterloo, K., Sparr, S. et al. Age-related psychomotor slowing as an important component of verbal fluency. J Neurol 253, 1414–1427 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-006-0225-9

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