Sunday, May 7, 2017

Normalization of timed neuropsychological tests with the PATA rate and nine-hole pegboard tests

SaccĂ , F., Costabile, T., Abate, F., Liguori, A., Paciello, F., Pane, C., De Rosa, A., Manganelli, F., De Michele, G. and Filla, A. Journal of Neuropsychology. doi: 10.1111/jnp.12125

We tested the method on 24 patients with Friedreich Ataxia (FRDA), as a model of motor and speech impairment. In healthy controls, phonation or hand movement is 13.5–61.7% of total test time. In FRDA patients, the effect of normalization improved all test results (range: 0.51–48.4%; p < .001). FRDA patients had worst scores in all tests when compared to controls, and the difference remained significant after correction except for the Attentional Matrices. At the individual level, the normalization method improved equivalent scores with fever patients showing impaired scores after correction.