Category Fluency in Mild Cognitive Impairment: Reduced Effect of Practice in Test-Retest Conditions

Verbal fluency tests are commonly used in neurocognitive and mental status examinations in patients with suspected dementia. Inflation of test scores as a result of practice effects may yield false-negative results in test-retest and multidisciplinary settings, particularly among patients with mild cognitive deficits. To address this issue, animal naming was administered twice within a 1-week period to a group of individuals referred for suspected dementia who were ultimately diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI; amnestic form), probable Alzheimer disease (AD), or no dementia. A 2 × 3 repeated-measures analysis of variance revealed a statistically significant interaction between administration time and group. Post hoc analyses indicated that nondemented controls were the only group to demonstrate a significant practice effect, producing an average of approximately three…

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