Validation of the coin rotation test: a simple, inexpensive, and convenient screening tool for impaired psychomotor processing speed.

OBJECTIVES: The Coin Rotation Test is a simple, convenient, and cost-effective measure of psychomotor processing speed that has been used in neurologic examinations at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences system for almost 20 years. On the Coin Rotation Test, participants rotate a coin through serial 180 degree turns using the thumb, index, and middle fingers for 10 seconds. In the current study, we sought to validate the Coin Rotation Test on a hospital-based sample by determining the task's sensitivity and specificity in detecting psychomotor processing speed impairment on a well-established criterion measure, the Grooved Pegboard Test.
METHODS: Participants included a sample of 161 participants obtained in a hospital setting (86 neurology clinic, 79 waiting area family practice clinic) who volunteered to complete several tasks of motor functioning and the Coin Rotation Test.
RESULTS: The Coin Rotation Test was found to be significantly correlated with a number of measures of motor functioning, suggesting a high level of convergent validity. Using a binary receiver operator characteristic curve analysis, the Coin Rotation Test predicted fine motor and psychomotor processing speed impairment with 0.80 sensitivity and 0.62 specificity for dominant hand performance and 0.83 sensitivity and 0.43 specificity for nondominant hand performance when a cut-score of 13 or fewer coin rotations was used.
CONCLUSIONS: These results support the utility of the Coin Rotation Test as a convenient and inexpensive psychomotor processing speed screening tool in clinical settings.