One-week practice effects in older adults: tools for assessing cognitive change

Although neuropsychologists are frequently asked to evaluate cognitive change in a patient, this can be a complex determination. Using data from 167 non-demented older adults tested twice across one week, the current study sought to provide a variety of reliable change indices for a brief battery of commonly used neuropsychological measures. Statistically significant improvements were observed on seven of nine scores examined over this short retest interval, with the largest changes occurring on memory measures. Information is provided on simple discrepancy scores, standard deviation index, reliable change index (with and without correcting for practice effects), and standardized regression based change formulae for each cognitive score. Even though a one-week retesting interval is a less typical clinical scenario, these results may give clinicians and researchers more options for assessing short-term change in a variety of settings.