Cognitive testing of elderly Chinese people in Singapore: influence of education and age on normative scores

Aim: to establish age-and education-adjusted mean psychometric test scores of cognitively normal elderly Chinese people in Singapore. Method: 155 community-living, cognitively intact elderly Chinese subjects, stratified according to age and education, were selected from the membership Lists of senior citizens' clubs and were administered a neuropsychological assessment battery. The mean test scores were then analysed for correlations with demographic characteristics. Results: only education and age were independent variables; gender and language spoken were strongly correlated with education by the chi(2) method (P<10(-5)). Subsequent statistical analysis of education and age on the psychological test scores by the general linear model procedure enabled the formulation of a table of age-and education-adjusted normative cognitive scores. Conclusion: the derivation of age-and education-adjusted normative scores of a selected neuropsychological assessment battery on elderly Chinese people enables a more accurate diagnosis of dementia to be made and may facilitate better international comparisons of this condition. As our subjects are representative of many others from China, these results may serve not only as a local, but also as a regional, reference source.