Objective To investigate the adequacy of the neuropsychological test battery proposed by the International Study of Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction to evaluate this disorder in Brazilian elderly patients undergoing surgery under general anesthesia. Methods A neuropsychological assessment was made in patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery under general anesthesia, aged over 65 years, literate, with no history of psychiatric or neurological problems and score on the Mini Mental State Examination at or above the cutoff point for the Brazilian population (>18 or >23) […]

Objective To evaluate the learning effect of computerized cognitive testing in the elderly. Methods Cross-sectional study with 20 elderly, 10 women and 10 men, with average age of 77.5 (±4.28) years. The volunteers performed two series of computerized cognitive tests in sequence and their results were compared. The applied tests were: Trail Making A and B, Spatial Recognition, Go/No Go, Memory Span, Pattern Recognition Memory and Reverse Span. Results Based on the comparison of the results, learning effects were observed […]

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, and agreement of the Dementia Rating Scale with clinical diagnosis of cognitive impairment and to compare its psychometric measures with those from Mini Mental State Examination. METHODS: Eighty-six elders from a long-term care institution were invited to participate in a study, and fifty-eight agreed to participate. The global health assessment protocol applied to these elders contained Mini Mental State Examination and Dementia Rating Scale. Clinical diagnose of cognitive impairment was performed by experts […]

ABSTRACT Objective: To detect the effects of Tai Chi Chuan practice on the cognition of elderly subjects with Mild Cognitive Impairment. Methods: This is a pilot study with 26 elderly patients (mean age of 74 years) with Mild Cognitive Impairment. The evaluation instruments were Subjective Memory Complaint Scale (SMC), Rivermead Behavioral Memory Test (RBMT) and Digit Span Forward and Backward (DSF and DSB) from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). One group of 13 patients received two weekly 60-minute classes […]