Normative data for the CERAD verbal episodic memory tests in a sample of older illiterate Korean women.

Background: Verbal episodic memory tests in the Korean version of the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) neuropsychological battery require literacy. While modified administrations are provided for illiterate individuals, there are no norms for evaluating the performance of illiterate subjects.

Objective: Assessing the performance of illiterate individuals has limitations, since existing norms were developed on data from literate populations. The purpose of this study is to provide normative data for illiterate Korean older women.

Methods: The participants analyzed in this study were all illiterate. Among a sample of 109 non-demented older adults recruited from community centers for dementia, only 9 were men. Thus, the current analysis developed norms for women. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize participants' characteristics and test scores. Linear regressions were conducted to examine the effect of age on verbal episodic memory tests.

Results: Age was found to be significantly associated with performance on all word list tests. Age was divided into two groups based on the average value for sufficient sample size and showed a significant difference in test performance: 60-75, ≥76 years.

Conclusions: Evaluating illiterate women using existing standards has the limitation of underestimating their performance relative to their actual skills. The present normative data are expected to enable researchers and clinicians to more accurately evaluate the results of the three verbal episodic memory tests, including the Word List Memory, Word List Recall, and Word List Recognition in older illiterate Korean women.