Performance of elderly African American and white community residents on the CERAD neuropsychological battery

The CERAD Neuropsychological Battery, includes 7 measures: Verbal Fluency; Modified Boston Naming; Mini-Mental Slate; Word List Learning, Recall and R ecognition; Constructional Praxis. It was originally developed to evaluate patients with a clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, but is increasin gly used in epidemiological studies of the incidence and prevalence of deme ntia in the elderly. The current study reports norms for African American a nd White representative community residents 71 years of age and older in No rth Carolina, and compares performance with that of African Americans in In dianapolis and with Whites in the Monongahela Valley, Pennsylvania. For all 3 studies, increased education and younger age was related to better perfo rmance on each of the 7 measures. Sex differences, when present, tended to favor women. Although on average African Americans performed more poorly th an Whites, with demographic characteristics controlled, no significant raci al differences were found in the North Carolina sample. Both African Americ an and White participants in North Carolina performed more poorly than thei r racial counterparts in the other 2 studies, possibly because of selection -induced differences in health and educational status. Nevertheless, the us e of an identical evaluation battery, such as the CERAD neuropsychologic in strument, facilitates comparisons not otherwise possible, and should be enc ouraged.