Evaluating a clinical measure of reaction time: an observational study.

The present study was an initial evaluation into the reliability and validity of a novel clinical measure of reaction time that consists of a vertical cylinder that is released and caught as quickly as possible. 65 healthy adults performed clinical and computerized reaction time tasks (RT(clin) and RT(comp)) under simple and dual-task conditions. RT(clin) demonstrated excellent test-retest and interrater reliabilities and was significantly correlated with the criterion standard RT(comp). RT(clin) increased with increasing age and when tested under dual-task conditions. These preliminary results suggest that RT(clin) is a reliable and valid measure of reaction time.