Guaranteed stimulus-processing in the evaluation of memory and learning.

A test of memory and learning with guaranteed initial stimulus-processing was validated and is here presented with norms for 70-79 year old and 80-89 year old community residents vs. nursing-home residents. The test procedure also allows incidental observation of stereognosis, object-naming, and left-right orientation, screens for depression, and elicits rapid retrieval of words from semantic categories--all common aspects of evaluation for dementia. A validation study showed a significant difference between 21 moderately impaired and 21 unimpaired elderly nursing home residents grouped by their scores on Blessed, Tomlinson and Roth's (1968) "mental test". Reliability was determined by coefficient alpha, which yielded an estimated correlation of .84 between recall (retrieval) scores and errorless true scores. Storage scores were correlated .72 with retention after three weeks (p. less than .01), and storage and retrieval were not significantly correlated with each other when mental status was partialed out. Storage impairment appeared more significant in dementia than retrieval impairment, which occurred in normal aging as well. Norms for community-active vs. nursing-home-residing 70 and 80 year olds are provided which allow the separate evaluation of total recall, storage, retrieval, and response to reminders.