The Extended Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test: a measure of everyday memory performance in normal adults

The Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test provides a well-validated instrument for detecting everyday memory problems in patient groups. It was however designed as a screening test, and thus is insufficiently sensitive to detect mild deficits, whether due to brain damage or to the introduction of a drug or stressor. The Extended Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test (ERBMT) increases the level of difficulty by doubling the amount of material to be remembered, by combining material from Forms A and B, and Forms C and D of the original test to produce two parallel versions of the new extended test. The sensitivity of the ERBMT was assessed by comparing the performance of a middle-aged and an elderly group of normal subjects, who would be expected to show modest differences in memory performance. The subtests varied in their sensitivity to this small age difference, but when performance was assessed in terms of scaled scores that allow an overall combined measure of memory performance to be calculated, the test proved sensitive (t = 4.87, P < 0.0001), and free of ceiling and floor effects. We suggest that the ERBMT provides a promising measure of everyday memory in normal adults.