Verbal fluency response times predict incident cognitive impairment

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Verbal fluency tasks are commonly used to assess cognitive function.
• Traditional scoring methods may not fully capture nuances of cognitive decline.
• Novel scoring approaches are needed for early and remote detection of cognitive impairment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate novel verbal fluency scores based on response times.
• To assess the predictive accuracy of speed scores in identifying cognitive decline.
• To determine if speed scores improve existing prognostic models.

Main Methods:

• Verbal fluency recordings from 641 incident cognitive impairment (ICI) cases and controls were transcribed.
• Utterance timing measurements were used to calculate speed scores.
• Cox proportional hazards (CPH) regression models incorporated raw and speed scores to predict time to ICI.

Main Results:

• The CPH model with speed scores showed a 3.4% improvement in concordance (0.599) compared to models with only raw scores and demographics.
• Significant predictive effects were observed for animals raw and speed scores, and letter F speed score.
• Speed scores demonstrated enhanced prognostication for cognitive decline.

Conclusions:

• Novel verbal fluency scores based on response times can significantly improve models predicting cognitive decline.
• These speed scores offer potential for remotely administered fluency tasks for early detection of cognitive impairment.
• The findings suggest that response time-based fluency measures are valuable tools in cognitive health assessment.