3
24
R. M. FRANK AND G. J. BYRNE
present with subjective memory complaint but who
do not meet diagnostic criteria for dementia.
Mental Health (J. R. Greenley, Ed.) J.A.I. Press,
London, pp. 3±32.
Hu, F. J., Becker, J. T. and Belle, S. H. (1987) Cognitive
de®cits and clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.
Neurology 37, 1119±1124.
CONCLUSION
Jagger, C., Clarke, M. and Anderson, J. (1992) Screening
for dementiaÐa comparison of two tests using
Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis.
Int. J. Geriatr. Psychiat. 7, 659±665.
The Hopkins Verbal Learning Test can be recom-
mended as an adjunct in the clinical assessment of
older people and as a brief screening test for mild
dementia. It has acceptable inter-rater reliability,
good sensitivity and speci®city, and its six alternate
forms are comparable. It does not appear to suer
Jorm, A. F., Korten, A. E. and Henderson, A. S.
(1987) The prevalence of dementia: a quantitative
integration of the literature. Acta Psychiatr. Scand. 76,
465±479.
from the ceiling eect commonly seen with the Knopman, D. S. and Ryberg, S. (1989) A verbal memory
Mini-Mental State Examination and may therefore
be useful for the early detection of dementia in
patients with high levels of premorbid function.
Further work on community samples of older
people without dementia will be needed to further
de®ne normative scores.
test with high predictive accuracy for dementia of the
Alzheimer's type. Arch. Neurol. 46, 141±145.
Krebs, R. (1994) The Hopkins Verbal Learning Test: an
alternative to the MMSE? Gerontologist 34(5), 692.
Lezak, M. D. (1995) Neuropsychological Assessment, 3rd
edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p. 293.
McAllister, T. W. (1981) Cognitive functioning in the
aective disorders. Comprehensive Psychiat. 22,
5
72±586.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Petersen, R. C., Smith, G., Kokmen, E., Ivnik, R. J. and
Tangalos, E. G. (1992) Memory function in normal
ageing. Neurology 42, 396±401.
Rasmusson, D. X., Bylsma, F. W. and Brandt, J.
(1995) Stability of performance on the Hopkins
Verbal Learning Test. Arch. Clin. Neuropsychol.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance
of Ms Elizabeth Arnold, Ms Elaine Pietersen,
Ms Peta-Lee Holt and Mr Michael Kilshaw.
1
0(1), 21±26.
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