ALPHANUMERIC SEQUENCING - A REPORT ON A BRIEF MEASURE OF INFORMATION-PROCESSING USED AMONG PERSONS WITH MULTIPLE-SCLEROSIS

Alphanumeric Sequencing involves the alternating recitation of countin g and the alphabet. We report data on the use of this measure with two clinical samples of persons with multiple sclerosis, having either th e chronic progressive (n = 23) or relapsing-remitting form (n = 52) of the disease. Patients were administered Alphanumeric Sequencing and s everal other tests of information-processing speed/capacity and short- term memory. Chronic progressive MS patients performed worse than 23 h ealthy controls on both the speed and error components of the test, wh ile relapsing-remitting patients were worse than 35 controls only on t he total time to complete the task. The time score was correlated with several measures of information processing and short-term memory.