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Updated: Jul 20, 2026

The 4 Mountains Test: A Short Test of Spatial Memory with High Sensitivity for the Diagnosis of Pre-dementia Alzheimer's Disease
Published on: October 13, 2016
Normative data on a measure of estimated premorbid abilities as part of a dementia evaluation
R L Yuspeh1, R D Vanderploeg, D A Kershaw
1Department of Aging and Mental Health, University of South Florida, Tampa 33612, USA. yuspeh@hal.fmhi.usf.edu
Abstract:
Estimating a person's premorbid cognitive abilities is common practice as part of a dementia assessment. Vocabulary has traditionally served as a "hold" measure because of its relative resilience to neurologic impairment and aging and its high correlation with overall intellectual functioning. Normative data for the Vocabulary subtest of the Shipley Institute of Living Scale (SILS) only go to age 64. This study describes the relations among age, gender, education, and SILS Vocabulary subtest performance. Normative data and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised equivalent Full-Scale IQ scores are reported for SILS Vocabulary subtest performance for a sample of 383 nonimpaired community-dwelling older adults, ranging in age from 60 to 94. Results expand the utility of the Vocabulary subtest of the SILS in providing an estimated level of premorbid cognitive ability.
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