Date of Award

10-2022

Document Type

Doctoral Research Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Anthony LoGalbo

Second Advisor

Patrick J. Aragon

Third Advisor

Kaitlynn Gokey

Fourth Advisor

Robert A. Taylor

Abstract

Objective: The present study examines executive functioning and overall neuropsychological functioning within a memory disorder clinic population with a specific focus on examining performance on the Modified Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (M-WCST) among individuals with and without cerebrovascular disease. Method: This study utilized test data collected between 2018-2022 from the research database at the Health First Memory Disorder Clinic (HFMDC) in Melbourne, Florida. Participants were included if they completed a brief neuropsychological evaluation (BNE) at the HFMDC with the M-WCST, Trail Making Test - Form B (TMT-B), and Color/Word subtest of the Golden Stroop as part of their battery and were given either a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), vascular dementia (VaD), or mixed dementia (AD + VaD). Results: Results of a one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed that M-WCST raw scores were not significantly different across diagnostic groups. However, descriptive statistics suggested the predicted hypothesized trend in which individuals with diagnoses of VaD and mixed dementia (AD + VaD) appeared to perform worse on the M-WCST when compared to those with AD. Another MANOVA was conducted and results

suggested a statistically significant difference in TMT-B performance and Color/Word performance between the dementia diagnoses. Specifically, individuals with VaD and mixed dementia (AD + VaD) both performed significantly worse on TMT-B when compared to those with AD. Additionally, individuals with mixed dementia (AD + VaD) performed significantly worse on Color/Word when compared to those diagnosed with AD. Lastly, correlation analysis revealed M-WCST scores were significantly correlated with performance on other executive functioning measures including TMT-B and Color/Word, thus contributing to the construct validity of the M-WCST as a measure of executive functioning. Conclusion: M-WCST scores were not significantly different between diagnostic groups perhaps due to the smaller sample size of VaD participants. However, TMT-B performance and Color/Word performance among the VaD group and mixed dementia (AD +VaD) group were found to be worse when compared to the AD group; therefore, further assisting in the differential diagnosis among individuals with and without cerebrovascular disease. Lastly, M-WCST scores were significantly correlated with other executive functioning measures which further contributes to developing the construct validity of the M-WCST as a measure of executive functioning in a memory disorder clinic population.

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