Performance on the Hooper Visual Organizational Test in patients diagnosedwith subcortical vascular dementia: Relation to naming performance

Objective: To examine the performance of individuals with vascular dementia (VaD) on the Hooper Visual Organization Test (HVOT) and to determine the i nfluence of naming on HVOT performance in this population. Background: The HVOT is commonly administered to assess visuospatial perception among neuro logic patients, but the test requires verbal identification of stimuli as w ell as spatial ability. Previous studies have examined the influence of nam ing on the HVOT, but the issue has not been systematically addressed in ind ividuals with subcortical VaD. Method: Individuals with a diagnosis of VaD were administered the HVOT, three additional measures of visuospatial funct ion (Block Design and Picture Completion subtests of the Wechsler Adult Int elligence Scale-Revised, Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test copy trial), an d the Boston Naming Test (BNT). Results: On average, the VaD patients perfo rmed poorly compared with normative data on each of the cognitive measures, with the most pronounced deficit evident on the BNT, Regression analyses r evealed that more than 60% of the variance in performance on the HVOT was a ccounted for by performance on the Block Design subtest of the Wechsler Adu lt Intelligence Scale-Revised; performance on the BNT did not contribute si gnificantly. Conclusions: The results suggest that VaD patients perform bel ow expectations on the HVOT and that the measure is robust to naming defici ts in this population.